A Deathly Silence
by MortiferSV
Summary: The song of ruin echoes through bloodied prayers, singing of the broken world which Yang Xiao Long has found herself in. Archived from Sufficient Velocity. AU.
1. Prologue

Standing in a new empty plain, the warrior looked around.

"To think there'd be Grimm this close to the roads..." He muttered to himself. "The people here must be close to despair after all."

It was no surprise, all things considered. Between the sickness going around, and the bloodthirsty bandits who left no survivors, the people outside the Kingdoms had seen more death than usual in the last few months.

Something the Hunter never thought he'd think to himself. The people out here were hardy enough that the death rates rarely changed overly much. Too hardened by Grimm attacks to mourn for long, too focused on survival to leave a weakness for the Grimm to take.

The sickness must have been worse than he thought, then. These people might have been outside the Kingdoms, but they were close enough to request a Hunter to investigate. If things were getting bad enough for people to break away and become bandits, then perhaps he should request backup. A few bandits, the Hunter could take. A gathering of Grimm in the numbers he had just fought, no problem.

But there were this many Grimm gathered in one place. Not scatted around the land, as usual. They were coming together. If the Hunter wandered around and looked for a cave, he'd bet on finding another such collection gathering. And it wouldn't be the only one.

There weren't many people who lived in towns this close to a Kingdom, but those who did had their reasons. Too poor to survive inside the Kingdoms, or too unwelcome. He doubted the people would accept an evacuation, if he thought they were in danger. He didn't doubt that one out of every ten people in there was an exile or criminal of some sort, avoiding punishment or unable to return to Vale. But to leave so many people in the path of danger...

He couldn't do that. Between the plague, the bandits hitting supply traders, the deaths that caused directly and through a lack of resources, and now the threat of a large scale Grimm attack...

The town wouldn't survive if he did nothing. But he couldn't deal with this alone. Too many threats at work. If he stayed to protect the town, the bandits would keep killing and starve them out. If he patrolled for bandits, the Grimm would attack while his back was turned.

With some back-up, a mission like this would be a piece of cake. Which meant, naturally, that the crime spree in Vale was bad enough that official channels didn't have time to deal with a town in the middle of nowhere. Sure, some traders had sent requests for aid regarding the bandits, but whoever was doing the killing had wandered up until now, so it was never the same company of traders complaining. A group would give a complaint, then the bandits would move on, the traders in one group would retract their complaint and get back to business while another group suffered.

But for the most part, the Hunters needed to maintain stability back in the Kingdom. It sucked, but it was unavoidable.

Usually, in a situation, the Hunter would just call in an old friend and request a favour. But that wasn't an option now either. There was only one person he could call on now, with everyone else dead or incapacitated, and he was watching the hunter's daughter after her near-death experience. Calling him in now would mean leaving his daughter unattended, and he couldn't do that. Not again.

Never again.

...There was nothing for it, then. The bandits usually wandered before an official response could be sent in, traders would wise up eventually and hire mercenaries, and it'd take longer for the people to die of starvation than from a Grimm's claw in the back.

He'd just have to get in contact with his old friend and ask him to pass off a message. Find the people who did the trading to this area, give them a message so the traders could get in contact with him. If the traders could get off a warning for him to run too, he could deal with the problem and head back fast enough that the town should be able to fend off the Grimm until he got back.

It wasn't the best solution. People would suffer until it worked, people could die if he made a mistake, and it was all so possible that the trading companies could just get stingy and stop sending supplies until the bandit's were confirmed dead.

But it wasn't like the Hunter could do anything else. He couldn't be everywhere at once, after all.

He just hoped that the illness going around wouldn't spread too far until Vale could send medical support. Otherwise...

A cough came from behind the Hunter, and he turned around in time to watch a woman stumble from out of the trees.

Her complexion was pale and sickly, and he could see her skin cling to her bone in places. Her movements were sickly and unfocused. It couldn't have just been her, either. The Hunter could see her weapon at her hilt, a rather well maintained sword. Someone who could fight wouldn't move like this in an area that had been full of Grimm a moment before, and she didn't look injured.

Another victim of the illness, then?

Taking a step forward, the Hunter called out, and the woman turned to look at him with-

* * *

The young woman sighed as she looked over the notes.

"So that's how they met." She mused. "A strong hunter taking in a dying woman that he found in the woods... It sounds like a real love story! A shame about what it lead to, though..."

"It was good for the man at the time." An older voice mused. "He may have seemed fine back then, but he was still fragile. Someone else to look after really grounded him."

"But considering what's coming?" The girl asked. "Perhaps it would have been kinder if the two had never met..."

"Perhaps." The old man mused. "But you're too young to be this cynical. It is not too late yet. Destiny may spin it's wheels before tragedy, but it's not a lost cause as of yet."

"Hm, you have a point." The girl noted. "Still, it's so sad, isn't it?"

"Then we'll have to hope our next person of interest can make it better."

The girl's eyes widened. "You mean we're moving on?"

"Of course." The old man noted. "We have enough of those two for now. Their role in things is important to understand, but the details won't be important for a time now. For now, who shall we observe? These four hold the power to turn this tragedy into something with a happier ending, but which one?"

The young girl looked over the notes for a moment before coming up with her answer.

 **[X] "Miss Nikos is in a position to make some important changes soon enough. Perhaps we should watch to ensure this tournament goes well for her?"**

 **[X] "Miss Rose is young now, but in time, she'll be perhaps the most important of them. If she's going to start learning to fight, perhaps we should take the time to guide her development?"**

 **[X] "Miss Belladonna has perhaps the most tragic start, but also the most reason to oppose our enemy. Perhaps her organisation could be guided down a path of our choosing?"**

 **[X] "Miss Xiao Long... The schooling trip outside the Kingdoms is happening soon. Perhaps she will encounter one of the targets, as you predicted. Shall we observe to learn of our enemy?"**


	2. A Little Ray Of Sunshine

[ **X] "Miss Xiao Long... The schooling trip outside the Kingdoms is happening soon. Perhaps she will encounter one of the targets, as you predicted. Shall we observe to learn of our enemy?**

It was Yang Xiao Long's third year at Signal Academy.

Really, it had felt longer. Considering how many different students had different semblances and different weapons, the curriculum wasn't able to be too advanced. A year to cover the basics of Aura, the most common weapon types and give students time to decide on and build a weapon, and then another helping the students learn to fight with their weapons.

The third year was rumoured to be where the most benefit was drawn from. The students had time to hone their skills, with both Semblance and weapon, so the teachers could stop focusing on making sure their combat style was sound, and start giving them real combat experience. It was also the hardest year- Where the students who couldn't cut it would be identified and given more training, and those who were skilled enough were sent to Beacon.

And in a sure sign of that escalation, the combat training stepped it up as well. In the first year, the students mainly fought teachers, to measure their skill in using Aura. In the second year, they mainly fought each other, to learn how to use their abilities, and get used to opponents who fought to win.

In the third year, they were finally moving on to the Grimm themselves.

...Well, officially, anyway. It certainly wasn't in the curriculum that students would sneak off to test themselves against a Beowulf in the Forest of Death, though it wouldn't surprise Yang if the only reason people got away with it was because they were allowed to. She was certainly a lot more successful sneaking off than those without Hunter parents, and being sneaky was hardly her speciality.

Really, Yang had it lucky. Ruby too, now that she thought about it. After Yang's poorly thought out plan to find her mother several years ago nearly got her killed, her father and uncle had decided that it might be worth it to teach the two how to defend themselves, and they went into Signal with a decent idea on how to fight already. It gave them a bit of an advantage, but since Signal was designed so that even people with next to no knowledge had a chance of making it to Beacon, it also meant a lot of what was taught was retreading old ground for Yang.

She hoped Ruby wouldn't find it too boring. She was good enough that Qrow had finally relented on teaching her how to fight with a scythe, so the basics on how to use your Aura to minimise damage would likely bore her.

But she could hardly think of Ruby right now. Ruby would be fine. She'd probably work through the boredom by thinking of more weapon designs, that seemed to be what she did when she was bored. Heck, Ruby had put more thought into Ember Celica than Yang had. She'd be fine.

Yang, on the other hand, was going to be taken outside her comfort zone.

She knew, going in, that the third year teachers at Signal would do _something_ like this. Something to throw their students into the deep end, see what they do under pressure, and create more unpredictable situations to see if their combat skills were able to hold up with the unexpected.

But leaving the Kingdom? Not even to go to another Kingdom, but to just wander for a month to see how well a group of students could work in those conditions?

It seemed like a bit of escalation. The Forest of Death sounded intimidating, but the older Beacon students and staff controlled the Grimm population there. Everyone knew what to expect going in.

But outside the kingdoms? That went out the window. You didn't know what to expect out there. Stronger Grimm, Grimm which had learnt that certain environments could be used to their advantage, all sorts of things. And that's not to mention what the people out there could be like. It wouldn't be too surprising if they ended up encountering a group of bandits, or if they invited enough attention that they were swarmed in Grimm constantly.

Which, Yang pondered, sounded kind of fun.

But on the other hand, Yang wouldn't get to see Ruby's first month at Signal, wouldn't get to see her friends much, and depending on what group she travelled with, could end up adventuring with some real annoying people. And if the assigned teacher was too much of a worrywort, they might not even get that many fights out of it.

Well, hopefully, it'd be fun.

The groups were randomised, from what she heard. Three students in a group, plus a teacher or two to keep an eye on them and make sure they didn't wander off and get kidnapped or killed.

She had a week until the groups were heading out. A week to get prepared for a month-long journey. Living expenses would be covered by the teachers, but there was still a week, so that things could be rescheduled if one of the students was too ill or injured to go, while letting people gather up some ammo for their weapons so they didn't need to worry about buying too much of it out in the wilds.

She didn't know what students would be travelling with her, but she could ask the designated teacher who was coming. She'd been sent a letter explaining the situation which included the name of the supervisor, after all. She'd just need to talk to them, if she wanted to know who was coming.

 **But who exactly is the teacher supervising Yang on this trip?**

 **[X] In a show of cross-Kingdom unity, your supervisor is apparently from the Atlas military. Uncle Qrow seems overly amused for some reason.**

 **[X] Apparently, the original person lined up broke a leg a few days ago, so a teacher from Beacon is stepping in to fill in.**

 **[X] This has to be his idea of a joke, right? He swapped the actual letter you got from Signal to make you worry that he was being too overprotective, right?**

 **Yang will make preparations herself for the most part, but i need something to write next updateYou get some special actions which you can get some sort of advantage out of. (Pick 2)**

 **[X] Spend some time with Ruby. Tinker away and upgrade Ember Celica a bit with her, figure out how she's doing with designing her own weapons, sneak some cookies out of the cookie jar, stuff like that.**

 **[X] Spend time with some friends. Most of them are probably too busy preparing, but you could go out for the night with one or two at least.**

 **[X] Get in touch with your teacher, figure out who else is travelling with you.**

 **[X] Be lazy. Watch television. There's a tournament going on around now, isn't there?**

 **[X] Go shopping. Maybe buy something nice. Some higher-quality specialised ammo, maybe. Or a storybook or pun book to pass the time if you get bored.**


	3. C is for Cookie

**[X] In a show of cross-Kingdom unity, your supervisor is apparently from the Atlas military. Uncle Qrow seems overly amused for some reason.**

 **[X] Spend some time with Ruby. Tinker away and upgrade Ember Celica a bit with her, figure out how she's doing with designing her own weapons, sneak some cookies out of the cookie jar, stuff like that.**

 **[X] Go shopping. Maybe buy something nice. Some higher-quality specialised ammo, maybe. Or a storybook or pun book to pass the time if you get bored.**

"A whole month?" Ruby asked.

"Hopefully." Yang replied. "It'd be a pain if something happened and I had to come back early."

Her little sister made a sad expression. "But... I was finally gonna be able to start working on Crescent Rose! How am I supposed to show her off now?"

"You could try to just contact my scroll?" Yang asked. "I mean, reception outside the Kingdoms isn't the best, but it's usually there."

"Over the phone?" Ruby objected. "That's just not the same..."

With how much sad Ruby was looking like a kicked puppy, Yang had to resist the urge to pat her head. "Hey, it's only a month, and Uncle Qrow's constantly made a point at how hard it is to learn to fight with a scythe. You might not get your weapon in a state you can use until I get back anyway."

Ruby pouted. "...Maybe. But I'm finally going to Signal and you're not going to be there!"

"I'm sure you'll do fine." Yang replied. "In fact, you'll probably do great. I look forward to coming back to the stories about how Ruby _rose_ to the top of her class."

Ruby blinked, then tried to hide a chuckle. "That's... That's terrible."

"Then why are you smiling?" Yang asked.

Before she could answer, Yang too the chance to use the brightened mode. "Hey, we still got a week before I leave. Want to tweak up Ember Celica a bit? Then we can try to steal cookies from the jar again."

"I think dad's caught onto the whole window thing, though." Ruby pointed out. "And he caught us last time you tried to distract him."

"Don't worry about it." Yang replied. "I've got a plan."

* * *

"Hm..." Ruby pondered, looking at the gauntlets. "I tried to adjust the recoil on it last time, didn't I? Was there any noticeable difference."

"Not really." Yang replied. "I mean, it felt the same stationary, at least. I haven't had time to test how it is on the move recently."

Ruby looked it over for a moment. "I was just wondering, one of the tweaks I made last time might have impacted the rate of fire, slightly. If I tried a similar change, I could maybe let you fire more often... If the recoil wasn't noticeably different, I should be able to make adjustments- Ah, but if I did that, the firing mechanism would get jammed more often, and fixing _that_ would mean shuffling around plating, and if I did that it could end up too fragile and I'd need to tweak the power behind each shot to keep it from falling apart at point blank-"

"Remember to breath, Ruby." Yang teased. "Maybe save that for after the trip, then, so we an undo it if it's too much of a hassle."

Ruby nodded. "Uh huh. In that case, we should probably leave off the finisher mode-"

"The what now?" Yang asked.

"Oh, didn't I mention it earlier?" Ruby asked. "I was able to cut down on the size of the firing mechanism a while ago, and was thinking of what to do with the extra space in Ember Celica. I was thinking of tweaking the mechanism a bit more, making it a bit bigger but giving it more variety. You'd be able to load more dust into a single shot and cause a bigger reaction, but by putting that much energy into the shot, it's more unstable. _Then_ I realised I could make that a feature, since if it's not going a long distance I could make it a close-range power option, and that means I could tweak the rate of fire and projectile power, tweak Ember Celica to repurpose those mechanisms towards focusing the reaction away from your fist when you fire and do more damage in a single blow when you load multiple dust rounds. But I'd need to adjust the size of the barrel to do that, and while I could make that a shifting function, I'd need to replace a lot of parts and it'd take a while to make sure it's fully functional after all those adjustments so-"

"Smaller words?" Yang asked.

Ruby stopped, and took a moment to remember to breath. "Big changes make big boom but closer." She explained.

"...You stole that joke from dad." Yang accused. "But I get the idea, I think. Too many changes to do now, but if you have time to pull it off I could expend a bunch of dust rounds at once to do a really strong attack?"

"Basically, yeah." Ruby replied.

Yang took a moment to try and process Ruby's longer explanation. "You said you could tweak it to focus the power so I don't get caught in the bigger blast, right? How much work would it be to do that with the smaller shots? A more focused form that lowers rate of fire and range in exchange for focusing the force behind the blast?"

Ruby took a moment to consider it. "I... Could do that. It wouldn't be a large boost in power, but it's still a little extra. I'll need the smaller screwdriver, though. Did you see where it went?"

Yang reached over towards it for a moment, before an idea occurred to her. Once it was in her hands, she tossed it to the side, near a pile of scrap metal.

"No idea where it is." She claimed. "Maybe you should ask dad for his spare."

Ruby, who had followed the screwdriver with a confused look, suddenly realised where Yang was going for this. "Oh! Yeah, I can do that."

"And I'll look for it too." Yang said. "Starting with the kitchen."

Ruby nodded. "I'll go find dad, then!"

With a smirk on her face, Yang wandered towards the cookie jar.

Over the years, Ruby and Yang had gone through great lengths to get those cookies when they weren't supposed to. They were kids, after all Why wouldn't they? But their father hadn't sat idle, but had gone through great effort to make it harder and harder.

It had become a game to them, at some point. One Yang refused to lose now.

As she walked into the kitchen, she completely ignored the obvious jar labelled "Cookies" on the bench. It was a trap. Qrow had acquired some sort of device on his travels that would trap your wrist until someone else pulled it out, and Yang had fallen for that enough times. The _real_ cookie jar was hidden behind a shelf, though which one, Yang wasn't sure of. It varied.

Of course, there was an easy way to tell. Her father hadn't realised it yet, but Yang had recognised the pattern. There were three shelves with cupboards beneath them, and three keyhooks near the front door that were just too high for her to reach. The key unlocked the cupboard, and which keyhook it was on showed which was hiding the cookies.

It was always one to the left.

Quickly dragging over a chair and grabbing the key from the leftmost hook, Yang put the chair back as best she could, and moved to unlock the rightmost cupboard beneath the shelf.

There was a large bag of flour there. Yang pushed it aside, and then around a hidden corner, and felt hard glass.

There it was.

Dragging out the real cookie jar, Yang opened it and reached around inside it. After a moment of nothing, her hand touched a sticky note. Curious, she immediately pulled it out to read it.

 _I owe me one cookie. -Taiyang_

...What?

Looking into the cookie jar this time, Yang confirmed her worst fears. There _were_ no cookies. Her dad had eaten them all.

The monster.

"Why the Long face?" A voice asked. Turning in horror, Yang saw her father in the doorway, a smile on his face.

* * *

The walk through the shopping mall was a long one. It was a big place, after all, and Yang only had so many funds on her.

And she had to use most of it buying more cookies, too. That was the rule. If you get caught digging around in the cookie jar without permission, you had to buy more cookies and watch as her father ate them all. Truly, history had known no greater monster.

At least Ruby had kept her part in the plan hidden, so she would end up getting some of the punishment cookies.

Still, she had a lot more than usual on her. Even with the punishment cookies coming out of her own allowance, Yang's dad had given her enough money to buy something nice for the trip outside the Kingdoms. So as soon as she had the time, the girl had gone to see which weapons sellers had the best prices.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a sign she didn't recognise. Turning to face it, Yang came face to face with a store which she hadn't seen before.

Huh. She had heard that the old pet shop owner had moved out of town, but she hadn't expected a new place to open up so soon. But hey, it sold some dust. Maybe it had something nice.

Approaching the place, Yang noted that the person manning the counter seemed to be a familiar looking old man.

"Do you run this place too?" She asked.

The old man shook his head. "Covering for a friend."

Yang nodded. "So, will you be manning the fast food place tonight as usual?"

"It's in the schedule." He noted. "You'll want the usual, then?"

"Might try the spicy chicken this time." She replied. "Something new."

The old man nodded, and Yang took a look around the store.

Ooh, those prices were cheap. She could get some slightly more explosive than usual Dust rounds, with more of a focus on kinetic force then flames, and see how that went with Ember Celica. Or pick ones more burny than hitty. She was good enough with controlling her Aura that she probably wouldn't set herself on fire.

As she looked around, however, Yang spotted a box in the corner, with a sign above it.

Experimental Dust Combinations?

As she approaches, Yang noted the much, much lower prices. She could get the good stuff and still try this experimental stuff. Though, there were a few warning labels...

Looking it over, Yang took a moment to decide what to buy.

 **[X] Experimental Round GB - Might expand and absorb other rounds to get stronger. Might also do nothing.**

 **[X] Experimental Round JJ - Might split into multiple explosive rounds when it hits something. Might also explode in your face.**

 **[X] Experimental Round MP - Untested**

 **[X] Experimental Round ZF - Untested Either explodes in your face or shoots your friends. I'm not sure why we still sell this.**

 **[X] These all seem like poor decisions. Buy that book on puns instead.**

The week passes quickly, and before long, Yang finds herself ready to meet her group. The supervisor of the trip, a certain Miss Schnee, was waiting for Yang and her group at:

 **[X] An airship. They were going to travel in style, apparently.**

 **[X] A boat. Apparently, certain shipments had been delayed, and Signal was also accepting a contract to post guards.**

 **[X] At the gates of the Kingdom. Apparently, modes of transport other than foot are too expensive and a Hunter needs to get used to walking.**


	4. Wintertime

**[X] Experimental Round GB - Might expand and absorb other rounds to get stronger. Might also do nothing.**

 **[X] An airship. They were going to travel in style, apparently.**

It was seven in the morning, when Yang arrived at the airship docks. Behind her, her father, uncle and sister followed along, ready to say goodbye. Her dad had insisted on carrying her luggage for her- Some spare clothes, spare ammo, cookies, repair kit in case something happened to Ember Celica, everything she could ever need.

Qrow had insisted on carrying a flask of rum with him for some reason, and as he approached the docks where Miss Schnee's airship was schedules to arrive to, he uncapped it and poured it on his shirt, underneath a vest to hide the stains.

"What are you doing, Uncle Qrow?" Ruby asked.

Yang's uncle smiled. "Don't worry about it, it'll just make this more convincing if she can smell it."

Apparently satisfied with that answer, Ruby returned to just following Yang, humming a song to herself as she did so.

It was weird, Yang thought. Ruby always seemed the sort to enjoy fast-paced, cheery songs. So the way she hummed what seemed to be a slow song was strange. Maybe it sounded my pop-esque with the instrument track, and not just whatever vocals Ruby was humming.

As the group stood around waiting for Miss Schnee's airship to arrive, the other two students assigned to Yang's group arrived as well.

The first arrived on his own, though Yang thinks she heard him saying goodbye to someone before he rounded the corner and came into her line of view.

Yang recognised him from school, even if the two didn't interact often. His name was Blast Yellowstone, and he was...

Well, on one hand, he seemed to have a bit of an ego. He was a showoff, a braggart, and was very open that he only wanted to be a Hunter because he thought it'd be cool.

On the other hand, he knew how to throw a party, was good for a laugh, and seemed to eternally be in the state of having fun. It was a common theory around school that, if Blast was any happier a person, Grimm would just outright melt around him.

"Oh, hey Yang." He called, as he walked over. "What a pleasure it is, to see such a beautiful girl such as yourself here. I was worried that I wouldn't have anyone to admire apart from my own reflection, when in fact, one of my assigned partners is beautiful _and_ can have fun!"

Yang opened her mouth to begin bantering, but as she did, her instincts flared and her eyes darted to the side.

Her father was looking at Blast with a hollow smile on his face.

...Yeah, better save the semi-flirtatious interactions until he was out of earshot.

"You're late, Blast." Yang replied. "You usually like arriving early, just to make a show of it. What, did you take too long looking in the mirror today?"

"Yes." Blast replied. "It had been a good six hours, so the handsome visage staring back at me caught me off guard."

"Oh my _god_." A voice said from behind the corner. " _Blast_ is here?"

Yang looked back to the source of the voice, and saw someone she didn't know as well. She'd met him once that she could remember, really. All she really knew about Piran Caledfwlch was that his Semblance was _really_ annoying.

She hadn't worked out all the tricks in the five minute match they'd sparred in, but the fact that he could throw a pebble and hit her with a boulder was quiet vexing, at the time. Of course, she'd been able to punch through the boulders she had seen coming, but it took ages for her to figure out where they were coming from.

At the sound of his voice, Blast turned around. "Piran." He said in a flat monotone. "Great. Just what we needed. Yang knows what fun is, so that meant we had to have someone keep the stick up their a-"

Yang coughed, looking over at Ruby. Sure, her little sister probably knew what curse words were already, but as long as none were said around Ruby while Yang was around she could pretend otherwise.

"Is it too late to ask for a different group?" Piran asked. "I'd appreciate if I wasn't stuck someone who ruined a stealth test just so he could fight some Grimm."

"That was one time!" Blast objected.

"You were complaining about how boring being sneaky was for an hour before you saw your chance."

"You weren't having fun either." Blast objected.

"Waiting for a chance for an ambush doesn't fill me with joy, no." Piran admitted. "But I at least know when to hold back my displeasure to follow instructions."

"What a fun group you have, Yang." Qrow noted.

"I'm not sure I like that Blast fellow." Taiyang noted.

Yang saw the opportunity and took it.

"He's just happy to have someone easy to look at on his team." Yang noted. "I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon, the attitiude won't _blast."_

Qrow groaned. "Is it too late to actually get drunk?" He asked.

Taiyang looked at Yang, a real smile replacing his empty one. "Oh? What's this, Yang? Are you as _piran_ to take my throne as the Pun King?"

Ruby sighed, as she resigned herself to overhearing another one of these contests. Yang would usually stop once getting this kind of reaction, but that wasn't what she was punning for now.

Her father had declared war, and she intended to win.

"Your powers are weak, old man." She declared. " _Xiao Long_ has it been since you were able to dish out some proper _pun_ ishment?"

"Ha!" Her father barked. "You think you can look down on my pun power? I _Schnee-_ r at your attempts to surpass your master. Admit defeat now, before you are forced to eat _Qrow_."

In the distance, Blast and Piran had stopped bickering, and where watching the pun-off. Piran had a horrified expression on his face, whereas Blast seemed considerate, giving a reaction to each pun, from a nod of his head to a thumb's up.

"You expect me to admit defeat?" Yang asked. "Yeah, alright. When I walk all over your pun attempts, de-feet will be all you can see."

There was a loud groan from everyone at that, and Qrow suddenly spoke up.

"OH LOOK." He said. "IT'S THE AIRSHIP. LET'S ALL LOOK AT IT. ESPECIALLY YANG AND TAIYANG."

"LET'S." Ruby agreed.

Father and daughter looked each other in the eye for a moment, then out to the sky. Sure enough, the airship was approaching the docks, though still a distance away.

Looking at each other again, Yang's father spoke.

"I'd need time to properly put you in your place." He smiled. "Let's just call this one a draw, then?"

"We both know you're just _lion_ to yourself." Yang replied. "But I'll let you keep your _pride_."

Taiyang shook his head. "Too quick to change the topic there, my apprentice." He instructed. "You need to make the transition smoother."

By that point, the airship had approached the dock, and Qrow took a step forward.

"Time for the main scene." He decided.

He stepped forward in a drunken stumble, despite the fact that Yang knew for a _fact_ that none of the rum in his flash had touched his lips. And he had denied earlier that he could absorb alcohol through his skin. And he had a class to teach later, and he never got drunk before a class.

What was he doing?

The airship door opened, and a young woman stepped out of the door, momentarily making Yang forget her uncle's antics.

...Man, if Yang looked half as nice as Miss Schnee did when she was older, she'd consider it a victory for her genetics.

The woman looked over the group for a moment, but immediately saw her uncle Qrow, and her expression faltered into disappointment. "Please no."

"Hey, Ice Queen." Qrow slurred. "Howsit hangin'?"

"No." Schnee refused. "I refuse to believe it. It's _Seven Thirty_. You are _not_ drunk already."

"You'd be surprised." Qrow replied.

Miss Schnee took a moment, smelling the air. "Is that rum?"

"Aw, you _do_ care." Qrow replied.

Schnee looked at him for a moment, before turning to Taiyang.

"Would it bother you much if I cut out his tongue?" She asked.

"I'll hold him down, if you want." Yang's father replied.

"So mean..." Qrow slurred.

"I don't understand." Ruby questioned. "Why is uncle Qrow pretending to be drunk?"

There was silence for a moment.

"...Pretending?" Miss Schnee asked.

"She doesn't know what she's talkin' bout." Qrow muttered.

"Can't you tell?" Ruby asked. "His stumble's completely different to when he's actually drinking, and he only slurs if he's sleepy."

"...If you've picked up on that." Qrow began. "Than I might need to stop drinkin' where you can find me."

"I..." Miss Schnee began. "Are you telling me you're pretending to be a drunken idiot for... What? To annoy me?"

"It's nice that you know me so well, Winter." Qrow replied, his slurring speech gone.

Winter looked at him for a moment. Then, a glyph appeared in front of her, and a vaguely draconic form appeared within it. Said dragon-thing, it's body a semi-transparent white, immediately lunged at Qrow, picking him up before he could react, and began carrying him elsewhere.

"Have fun Yang!" Qrow called, as he disappeared into the horizon.

Watching him disappear for a moment, Winter seemed to smile, before returning her face to a serious expression as she looked over at the group.

"Blast Yellowstone. Piran Caledfwlch. Yang Xiao Long. Please step forward."

The three of them quickly gathered into a straight line in front of Winter.

"What just happened?" Piran asked in a whisper.

"I've found a new role model." Blast whispered back.

Winter Schnee looked at Blast, but seemed to want to put the incident out of her mind.

"The three of you will be with me for the following month." Winter began. "We will be travelling between several villages outside the Kingdoms. At each village, we will deal with whatever problems they have, be it a Grimm buildup, bandit problems, or merely any small job that a newly graduated Hunter would do for funds while waiting for a bigger job to be made available."

Everyone nodded.

"Let me make this clear." Miss Schnee continued. "I do not know how you do it in Vale, but under my instruction, you will be expected to follow orders. If you do not, I will send you back to Vale immediately, and I am told that this will impact on your grade for the year."

Another round of nodding.

"This isn't just for the sake of convenience." Winter went on. "Nor is it because you need to learn how to follow directions. Outside the Kingdoms is a dangerous place, and if you do not do as I instruct, you could find yourself in a dangerous situation which I am unprepared to get you out of. I will not tolerate any of you making this more dangerous than it needs to be. It has been well over fifty years since a student has died on this trip, and I do not intend to ruin that record. Am I understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Piran replied.

Winter nodded. "Very well. Has everyone got their luggage?"

"Hold on a moment." Blast said. "I left mine at the desk so I didn't need to carry it around while looking for the right dock."

"Go and get it, then." Winter said. She looked over at Taiyang, who was putting Yang's luggage down at that moment, then at Piran. "And you?"

Piran pulled a small cube the size of his thumb out of his pocket. Then, with a twist of his hand, he threw it into the air, and it expanded in size. "I've got mine covered."

...Just what _was_ Piran's semblance? It obvious had something to do with making things bigger...

And smaller, apparently, as Piran quickly shrunk the box back down to put it back in his pocket.

"Very well, then." Winter Schnee continued. "We leave as soon as Blast returned. Everybody else, I recommend boarding now to save time."

Piran nodded, as he got onto the airship. Turning around, Yang looked over at Ruby and her father.

"I'll see you guys later, then." She said.

"Bye Yang!" Ruby called, waving. "Don't forget to call!"

Yang picked up her luggage from where her father had put it down. "I'll be fine. Hey, do me a favour and don't let dad think he can run around unchallenged pun-wise, okay?"

Ruby paused. "...He can pun all he wants as long as I'm not there."

"I'm hurt." Taiyang replied. "I can't believe my daughter doesn't think I'm _pun_ ny-"

Ruby groaned.

"I'll miss you, Ruby." Yang said. "You too, dad."

"Be safe." Taiyang said.

Having said their goodbyes, Yang walked onto the airship, and began looking for a room to put her supplies in.

 **It's going to be a long flight, but Winter Schnee made sure to tell everyone where they were going first, and why.**

 **[X] The town of Critalas, bordering a large forest, was reporting people going missing while scavenging for supplies. The forests weren't too dangerous, so were a good place to start measuring the strength of the students.**

 **[X] A few mountain villages had reported wyvern attacks. While likely misreported, confirmation was needed so that inexperienced Hunters weren't send to deal with it. Winter was going to investigate, and the students were going to keep an eye out for lesser Grimm.**

 **[X] A refugee town was reporting that it's numbers were getting too large for the town to supply, and were requesting Hunters to come in and clear a path to other nearby Towns. The people there had lived hard enough lives, any help they could get would mean the world to them.**


	5. My Kind of Town

**[X] A refugee town was reporting that it's numbers were getting too large for the town to supply, and were requesting Hunters to come in and clear a path to other nearby Towns. The people there had lived hard enough lives, any help they could get would mean the world to them.**

"Have you been watching the Mistral Tournament?" Blast asked.

Yang shrugged. "Been busy, and the finals aren't for a bit longer anyway. Why, did I miss any good matches?"

"A few." Blast replied. "It's been fast this year. Nikos has been tearing through them as fast as usual, but there's a few newcomers that might actually give her a challenge."

"Really?" Yang asked. "I mean, she still hasn't been touched, so people actually think she could lose this one?"

"She's still the favourite." Blast replied. "But her next round is against another one of the favourite. Newcomer explained his Semblance before the first round, and it's bullshit."

"Oh?"

"His Aura regenerates in the sunlight fast enough to be effectively infinite."

"...Some people get all the luck." Yang complained. "That's got to be a pain in the ass to fight, isn't it?"

"Only if the weather's good." Blast noted. "But it's the match everyone's looking forward to at the moment. People are surprised it's happening before the final round."

Yang shrugged. "Maybe they know something we don't? Maybe the weather's gonna be terrible when the finals come around and they want to get the fun fight out of the way when they can."

"Maybe." Blast considered. "But on the bright side, judging by the predictions, most of the most likely final rounds are going to be a some cute girls beating the hell out of each other. I really don't wanna miss that."

"If you want to watch pretty people get into fights, just wait a moment." Yang replied. "Winter should be done evaluating Piran's skills in a moment, and I don't mind people watching me fight."

"It's not about pretty people fighting." Blast corrected. "I get that all the time when I fight. There's just something special about two girls, the same age and general level of skill and power, punching each other. There's just so much beauty, you know?"

"So, are you saying you _don't_ want to see me fight?"

"I didn't say that." Blast replied. "I'd love to. I can only admire my own beauty for so long, you know? I need someone else to admire, to contrast and better appreciate how good looking I am."

"You think you look better than me?" Yang asked. "You _must_ be delusional."

"Oho? Doth the fair maiden think so highly of thouself?"

"I'm pretty sure that's not how you talk old timey." Yang pointed out. "Also, I have no idea what you're trying to say."

"I'll be more simply about it, then." Blast decided. "You're pretty, but I'm prettier. More beautiful. More handsome. Whatever word you want to use."

Yang looked at Blast for a moment. Then, slowly, deliberately, turned her gaze towards the window, where her reflection was vaguely visible.

"...Nah."

"Shall we seek a third party opinion?" Blast asked, just as the door opened.

Piran walked in, panting in exhaustion. Yang and Blast turned to him.

"Tell them I look better." They said, in unison.

Piran blinked, and looked at them for a moment.

"...You're both pretty, ladies." He said. "And I'm tired. So I'm leaving. Yang, Winter wants to test you next."

"Cool." Yang noted. "Come on, Blast."

"She also said she didn't want watchers." Piran continued. "Something about keeping the test a surprise."

"Aw." Blast complained. "In that case, I guess I'll just annoy Piran for a while."

The boy groaned. "I hate you. I hate you so much."

"Don't let him bother you, Piran." Yang noted. "If he gets too annoying, just put a mirror in front of him and run while he's distracted."

"So mean." Blast complained, as Yang walked away.

Walking through the door of the airship, Yang found herself in a large room, with dents and scorch marks covering the walls and floor.

In the centre, Winter stood, completely untouched despite the poor state of the room.

"This is going to take a while to fix." Yang noted.

"No matter." Winter replied. "This room was built to be easily fixed. Once the month is up, it can get repaired."

"What's it made of, if it got damaged so easily in the first place?" She asked.

"Easily?" Winter asked. "Oh, it wasn't any small amount of force that did this damage."

A glyph appeared at her feet, and from it, a great number of ghostly Beowulf's appeared.

"You will fight until you cannot anymore." Winter declared. "I want to see what you're capable of. You will not be given time to rest between rounds. Begin."

And as one, the ghostly figures dashed at Yang.

Caught off guard, Yang jumped upwards. It was a good thing she'd listened when Winter recommended keeping her weapon on her at all times. Ember Celica shot downwards, propelling Yang further into the air, as well as forcing away the closer figures.

She knew the proper method of dealing with swarms of Grimm up close. Stay mobile, never get pinned down, and never be surrounded. Unfortunately, Winter already took away that first point by summoning the Beowulf's everywhere in the room, but as long as she had a way out they couldn't cut off, she would be fine.

The closest ghostly Beowulf found Yang's foot hitting her face, a second before she leapt off it, pushing down on it to knock it to the ground and firing at it as she did so. The propulsion this time was more vertical, allowing her to really get moving.

It was easy enough, keeping mobile from there. Winter's replica Grimm seemed to be holding back, and weren't really working hard to hit her. Which made sense. This was testing what Yang could do, and was just the first round. She shouldn't have to worry about them getting tactical until Winter got a taste of Yang's abilities.

As the Beowulf's numbers began to thin, Yang decided it was safe to set foot on the ground again. Before she could fall to her feet, though, she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye.

Turning her head to face it, Yang was just in time to see the Boarbatusk charging at her position. Quickly firing at it, Yang used the explosion to move out of the way and land elsewhere, even as the shot failed to harm the Grimm through it's armour.

Round two was starting unannounced, then.

Three more Boarbatusk's appeared around Yang, and the girl dodged out of their path, firing at them to keep them distracted.

She wasn't strong enough to damage the boar Grimm, or to knock them over and hit their unarmoured stomachs. But she couldn't let herself get hit by one. Normal Boarbatusk's were smart enough to grapple with someone and keep them pinned, and ones controlled by Miss Schnee were definitely going to be smarter than normal.

...Which just meant she needed to damage herself to her use her Semblance.

Standing still for a moment, Yang waited, baiting the Grimm into charging at her. She took the moment to fire at the leftover Beowulf's, thin their numbers. Then, as the first Boarbatusk approached, she jumped at it. Skimming over the top of it, she fired downward, hitting both it and herself with a small explosion.

The Boarbatusk was unharmed, but Yang was able to use the propulsion to fling herself higher in the air. At the peak of her ascent, she fired Ember Celica upwards, propelling herself down.

A second before she hit the ground, she slammed down her fist and fired again. Between the gravity and the explosion, her Aura had taken some damage.

Good.

Another Boarbatusk charged at her, and Yang ran at it. It's tusks moved to lock in her arm, but her Semblance had kicked in. She'd taken damage, and now she was stronger. Once it was within arms reach, she was able to kick upwards against it, sending it into the air with the force and leaving in vulnerable to an Ember Celica shot to the stomach.

Ready for the next opponent, Yang looked around, only to realise all the Grimm had disappeared.

"...Is it over?" She asked, turning towards the Schnee.

Winter didn't reply, and a moment later, Yang heard a roar behind her.

Whipping around, Yang barely dodged out of the way of a large Creep, easily three times her size. She jumped under it's legs when she saw it coming, and took a moment to get a good look at the apparition.

The white ghostly being that Winter had created had an odd greenish tint to it, and was bigger than the usual Creep. Which meant it was probably stronger.

Before another thought could pass through her mind, the Creep detonated, sending out an explosive force that sent her slamming into the wall.

"That's enough." Winter decided.

"...Nah." Yang replied, picking herself off the floor and breathing heavily. "I'm still good."

"I've seen enough." Winter replied. "You're competent. Able to deal with lesser Grimm, and make plans to deal with stronger ones. You know how to take advantage of your Semblance. But an unexpected threat left you unprepared.

"Since when do Creep's explode?" Yang asked.

"Not the point." Winter replied. "This isn't the Emerald Forest. The Grimm there are culled and controlled, under the assumption that Signal students would sneak in before they are meant to on dares and bets. The Grimm there are ones you are expected to know about."

As someone who had sneaked into the forest near Beacon based on a dare once, Yang didn't need much convincing that people would be prepared for that.

"Anything you encounter outside the Kingdoms could be a surprise." Winter continued. "Did you know there are Grimm that use weaker Grimm as bait to lure people into trap? Variants of Grimm that disguise themselves as weaker forms to catch people offguard?"

Yang didn't reply, catching her breath.

"Consider this a lesson." Winter continued. "If you assume you understand a threat, it will have consequences. Don't grow complacent just because you think you recognise the threat. Outside the Kingdoms, assume nothing about your foes."

Looking over Yang for a moment, Winter nodded.

"Regardless, you are competent enough." She declared. "If you encounter something too powerful for you, with the level of competence you have shown should suffice for you to either escape or survive long enough for me to arrive."

"Thanks?" Yang questioned.

"You are excused." Winter decided. "It won't be long until we arrive at our destination, and I have yet to test Blast Yellowstone. Please send him in."

Yang nodded, and left.

* * *

"Hey, Piran." Yang greeted, sitting down in a corner.

"Yang." The boy said. "Is there something you wanted?"

"Not much." She replied. "Just wanted to talk."

"If this is going to be something as annoying as Blast was talking about-"

"Not here to tease, for once." Yang said. "We're stuck together for a month, so we may as well get along."

"...A decent point." Piran admitted. "Perhaps this month will be tolerable after all."

"I know a bit about Blast." Yang went on. "But not much about you. What do you do for fun?"

"Now's hardly an appropriate time for 'Fun.'" Piran replied. "This may be a training trip of sorts, but it's still a mission. People's lives rely on our success. Don't they deserve to know that we're taking this seriously?"

"I mean, we're not on the mission yet." Yang replied.

"Perhaps." Piran countered. "But it's still something that's coming. I'm not the sort of person who would just be able to relax while knowing that lives hand in the balance depending on my coming actions."

"That's a kinda cynical outlook." Yang pointed out. "If you thought like that, you'll never stop worrying."

"I can relax later." Piran replied. "After the mission. But.. It just rubs me the wrong way, to not focus on what's coming. You and Blast can do what you want, but don't try and drag me into your banter when I'm trying to focus, please."

"...If you insist." Yang relented. "But once we help these people out, I'm dragging you to a party or something. No buts."

"Fine then." Piran shrugged. "Sounds like fun."

"We should be approaching the refugee village now." Yang pointed out. "Want to go see if we can see it from the cockpit?"

"Sure."

It was a short walk there, and the cockpit was empty when they arrived. The autopilot on the thing was good enough to get from point A to point B, though there was still a control panel for someone to manually control the thing in emergencies.

"Can you see it?" Yang asked.

"Not yet." Piran replied. "But there's a timer here, see? Just another ten minutes."

"Cool." Yang said. "Should we go tell Winter and Blast that we're nearly there?"

"Winter should know." Piran replied. "She's probably keeping track of..."

He trailed off, and Yang looked at him, concerned. "Is there a problem?"

"Yang." He said, a tone of worry in his voice. "Is it just me, or is there smoke on the horizon?"

It took another moment for the town to be close enough to confirm, but there was no denying it.

The town was burning.

 **[X] This isn't just some accident. This is an attack. Find out who's leading it and take them down.**

 **[X] There's got to be people in there. Find anyone still in there and get them out of the path of danger.**


	6. Two

**[X] There's got to be people in there. Find anyone still in there and get them out of the path of danger.**

"We can't afford to delay." Winter said, as she walked the airship. Everyone followed her, as she lead them to the drop point. "Once we get above the city, we'll jump out. Aim for the tallest building in case something goes wrong, but my summons will get you down without using your Aura."

"Yes ma'am." The voices echoed.

"It's likely the culprit responsible for this is still in the village." She continued. "We have no idea who they are, how many there are, or how powerful they are. The three of you will avoid confrontations."

"But-"

"No buts." Winter interrupted Blast. "I will deal with the enemy threat. You three are to minimise casualties. Get people out of the village, out of burning buildings, whatever. Am I understood?"

"Loud and clear." Piran said. "My Semblance lets me manipulate the size of things. I'll make sure all there's nothing blocking escape routes, like collapsed pillars blocking a door."

"You do that." Winter said. "I'll have some bird summons look for people and guide you to them. I won't be able to manually control them so they won't be too smart, but they'll get the job done."

Winter stopped in a room, and the wall began sliding up.

"Don't try to be a hero." Winter said. "If you can't save someone without sacrificing yourself, do what you have to do. There'll be other people to save."

Yang was silent, as she looked down at the village. There was fire everywhere, and with the wall removed, she could hear the screams.

...There was a lot of reasons Yang had wanted to be a Huntress. Fight Grimm. Have an excuse to walk the world and find her mother. The thrill of it. But none of that mattered right now.

People were dying, and she could stop it. Right now, how she felt didn't matter. Even if she'd rather follow Winter and fight the ones responsible, peoples lives were at stake.

"Let's go." Winter said, and in a flash, she was gone. Three ghostly Nevermores formed around her as she fell, and as Yang followed, one swooped underneath her.

"Down." She said. She couldn't afford to delay. In fact, she didn't.

In the five seconds it took the ghost Nevermore to lower her to the ground, Yang had prepared herself. Leaping off it, she hit her mark and rolled into a window. Glass shattered, and she entered a burning building, but there was no issue there.

She took a moment to listen around. There were no screams from nearby. Everything was too distant. But, in the distance, she could also hear gunfire.

...Winter better hurry.

"Anyone here!" Yang screamed out.

Nothing. The building was empty.

Spinning around, Yang refused to waste time. Ember Celica fired at the wall, and the detonation left a big enough hole for her to open.

Leaping from the building, Yang rolled on the ground for a moment before spinning around.

Part of her wanted to search building by building, but she couldn't waste time like that.

Just find the closest scream.

Dashing around the town, following the first scream led her to a wooden building on the verge of collapse.

Making a hole in it could damage it too much, so to her frustration, Yang went around, searching for the door.

"Help here!" She called. "Where are you?"

The nearest scream faded for a moment. "Over-"

The young girl's voice broke off into a cough, and Yang paled.

The smoke. People weren't able to breath in here.

Running through towards the voice, Yang quickly found the person in question. A girl, easily half Ruby's age, with a pair of fox ears on top of her head. She was huddled to the floor, away from the flames, trying to stay low.

"It's okay." Yang said, as she ran through the flames, her Aura protecting her. "I'm here to get you out of her."

"...Who-"

"Don't talk." Yang said. "Just... Close your eyes for a moment, okay?"

She couldn't carry the girl through the flames, but she could try something. The faunus closed her eyes, and Yang picked her up with one arm, facing the wall with the other.

Running towards the wall, Yang turned at the last second, bursting through the burning wood while covering the child. The fox gave a cry of fear, and the building creaked as it began to collapse, but the two had gotten some distance by the time it finally fell.

Yang slipped back as she tried to alter her momentum, landing on her back and sliding on the ground for a moment. Groaning, Yang lifted her head. "You alright?"

The girl opened her eyes slowly. "Am... Am I dead?"

"I hope not." Yang groaned. "You're about as alive as I am."

The girl gave a small smile, which instantly faded away. "My mother..."

"Where is she?" Yang asked. "I can go and get her-"

"She's..." The girl began, but instantly trailed away, tears in her eyes.

...Oh, shit.

"It's okay." Yang said. "Everything's going to be okay."

A small ghost bird flew by, and Yang followed it with her gaze.

Someone else to save-

She paused, and looked at the Faunus.

...Crap. If the town was still under attack, Yang couldn't just leave the girl by herself. But if she escorted her to the town walls or somewhere safe...

"Hold on." Yang said. "I need to get more people, so hold on tight, okay?"

The fox girl looked confused, and didn't respond, but held on to Yang regardless.

Nodding, Yang set out on a run, following Winter's bird.

In a moment, she came to another building, with the doorway collapsed with burning wood.

"Stay here a moment, okay?" Yang said, as she put the fox girl down. The girl didn't respond, just sat there and cried.

Trying to push the thought of the child crying because Yang was too slow out of her mind, the teenage Hunter-in-training looked at the wall of burning wood, and ran at it.

The wood was shoved away, and Yang took a moment to evaluate her current level of Aura.

...Yeah, it was sufficient.

"Anyone in here?" She asked

"Up here!" A woman's voice replied, from on top of some stairs.

Sprinting for them, Yang ignored the flames lapping at her Aura again. "Who-"

A bullet bounced off her Aura, and Yang froze.

The woman who had spoken was outfitted in some sort of uniform, a gun in one hand pointing at Yang, and another holding a boy by the throat.

"Don't try anything clever." The woman hissed. "You're gonna get me out of here, or the boy gets it."

Yang stared at her. "You..."

"Yes, I did this." The woman hissed. "Me and the rest of the Freelance Fighters. This little town here got too far behind on it's payments, y'know? We put in a lot of effort keeping the people safe, and they couldn't even spare the change to pay us for our efforts. Can't let word spread that we're easily conned into free work, can we?"

The yellow-haired girl felt her anger boil over as she glared at the woman. "Put. The boy. Down."

"So you can kill me?" The woman asked. "I'm not that much of a fool. You might be a bit smaller than me, but now that there's Hunters here, I'm gonna need a way out. Those clothes of yours will make a good disguise. Giv-"

And suddenly, a wail thundered through the village.

Yang took a step back, her hands reaching for her ears as the loud, yet melodic, sound echoed in her head. The boy clearly struggled against it too, and the mercenary woman dropped him in her effort to cover her own ears.

And then the wall exploded into flying bricks. Yang looked up as she heard it, and saw the interruption just in time to watch the slab of iron impale the woman. There was a cry of pain, and a snarl of anger, before the giant blade twisted and the woman's midsection was torn apart.

The bloody chunks that remained fell to the ground, and Yang caught her first glimpse of the wielder of the sword.

She was older than Yang was, by a few years at least. Or at least, she looked that way. She was tall, with her sword the length of her long legs and as wide as her torso. Her hair was short and blue, and she wore gloves that covered most of her muscled arms. In fact, all of her clothing was blue, from her rather revealing top to her high heels.

She looked at Yang for a moment, letting Yang observe the mark on her forehead.

II

Roman Numerals, for the number two.

The moment passed, and the blue-haired girl turned to the boy.

"Are you okay?" She asked. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Don't worry. Auntie Two's gonna look after you, okay?"

The boy nodded, and the girl- Two- Picked him up, before turning back to Yang.

"Get the girl outside and follow me." She said, before running back out the hole she had made.

Yang watched her go, then shook herself out of the shock.

That... Had been close. Thank god that Two girl had come along, she didn't know what to do with that woman.

As her thoughts drifted that way, Yang looked down at the woman.

She was dead. As the blade had twisted through her, on it's way out, it had stuck up at her heart. She had died in the moments it had taken Two to look at the woman.

Yang... Didn't know how to feel about that.

But she could think on it later. Two had said to follow her.

Leaping out the wall herself, Yang saw Two waiting on the roof of a building nearby. Hitting the ground near the crying girl, Yang picked her up again.

"We're gonna get you somewhere safe." Yang whispered. "Don't worry. It's all going to be okay."

Seeing her grab the girl, Two ran off again, and Yang struggled to keep up.

Down this street, through that alleyway, pausing momentarily so Two could go into a burning building and save an old man, delaying just long enough for the old man to tell them to go ahead without him, down another street, round a corner, to the wall.

The buildings this far in were devastated and gone, but one stone building was still relatively intact. Leading Yang into there, Two put down the small boy.

Following her, Yang let the fox faunus go, and looked around.

There was a ton of people in here. Mostly children, but some older people as well. One man in the corner was trying to treat children with burns, while a pair of women in the middle of the room tried to cheer the children up by singing them a song.

"Two?" A girl's voice asked, and Yang turned to face them.

By the doorway, the blue-haired girl was talking to a red-haired one that looked about Yang's age. Her right arm was bandaged, and her clothes were bloodied, but she held a large hammer in her left.

"Nora?" Two asked. "What are you doing? Where's Ren?"

The orange-haired girl looked at Two. "He... He ran out. When you left. He said he'd caught a glimpse of their leader when he broke my arm, was going to go finish this."

Two shook her head. "No, no, no, he can't do that, he's hurt too, he'll..."

"I have friends out there." Yang said. "An experienced Huntress from Atlas, too. She went to confront the leader of these fu- Mercenaries. She'll save your friend, don't worry."

Two looked at her for a moment. "But what if she's too slow? Cent's out there looking for the leader as well, but I'd know if he'd have found the guy. I need to-"

"Miss Two?" A voice asked, and a small girl pulled at the hem of Two's skirt. "Did you... Did you find my papa?"

Yang could watch Two's heart break as she looked down at the girl. "I..."

Stepping closer, Yang spoke again.

 **[X] "I'll call my friends, tell them to bring people here. I'll help you find the guy in charge."**

 **[X] "Get in contact with this Cent guy if you can, I'll call Winter. Co-ordinate the efforts against the leader while we keep looking for people."**

 **[X] Write-in.**


	7. Help is on The Way

**[X] "Get in contact with this Cent guy if you can, I'll call Winter. Co-ordinate the efforts against the leader while we keep looking for people."**

Two nodded at Yang's suggestion.

"Yeah, this'll work." Two said. "Cent can make sure Ren survives and nothing bad happens, I can save everyone else, everything will be fine."

She nodded vigorously, as she pulled out a scroll and activated it. Following her example, Yang reached for a pouch on her belt.

Signal had wanted to make sure nothing went wrong on the trip, so each of the supervisors had been assigned some special scrolls. Linked up to each other primarily, with the ones for the students hooked up not to communicate with anyone else by default. It' be easy enough to hook up another number if needed, but as they were, it was designed to have good reception to getting in touch with anyone else on the trip. Primarily Winter, but also each other in case something happened.

Yang's scroll didn't take long to get in contact with Winter's, but it kept ringing for a while. Winter must have been busy.

Two's scroll answered first. "Two? What do you need?"

"Hi, Cent!" The blue-haired girl cheered. "Hey, everything's alright on your end, yeah?"

"So far." Cent replied. "I've had some... Polite conversations with our attackers. Haven't found their leader yet, but give me time. How about you?"

"Mostly good." Two replied. "Safe place is still safe. Ren's run off to go fight, though. Could you keep an eye out for him?"

"Ren? The one who always wears green, right?"

Two looked up at the orange-haired girl with a broken arm, who nodded. "Yeah, that's him."

"I'll find him." Cent said. "I'll drag him back to you after I deal with the mercenaries."

Yang's scroll finally stopped ringing, and Winter's voice spoke. "What's the situation, Yang."

The huntress in training cleared her throat. "I've gotten in contact with some locals, and some of them are hunting the merc leader as well. I thought it'd be a good idea to trade off any information we have."

"Oh yeah." Two said. "Cent! We've got help from the Kingdoms!"

"More help?" Cent asked. "I'm going to have to be more impressive than usual now, Two. We can't have your Disciple looking anything but his best in front of outsiders. I'd hate to reflect poorly on you."

Two blushed slightly, but Winter spoke up, louder, so as to make sure Cent caught the message.

"You're hunting as well, then?" She asked. "I've been sweeping the village, but haven't had much luck. The thrust of the attackers seem to be gathering to the north right now, so I suspect the leader will be leading the charge there."

"I wouldn't be too sure." Cent replied. "I encountered an attacker who had an unfortunate sword accident and was missing a leg. He seemed eager to trade information in exchange for not dying. He said the leader would be using the attack as a cover to do his own business elsewhere."

"Well, he's not to the east of the bakery, at least." Winter said. "My summons have swept the area, and it's empty."

"I've checked the treasury in the centre of town." Cent replied. "It was damaged, but the people near it weren't important, so I don't think the leader's just gonna try and pillage it while people burn elsewhere."

There was quiet for a moment. "The buildings over here are rather damaged. Burning, some explosive remnants... Have you encountered anyone who could be responsible?"

"There was a guy with a fire Semblance." Cent replied. "But nothing that could have caused an explosion."

"And the area to the north looked rather damaged as well, from the airship." Winter mused. "So I'd say the one in charge would be marking out areas right now, getting ready to detonate places ahead of their men hitting the area."

There was quiet for a moment. "There's only a few places left undamaged, and those people have probably run by now, so there's hardly a point in looking for them. I'll sweep the north, keep an eye out for anyone suspicious moving in. You said you had summons? Keep them sweeping the area. Have any more specific ideas?"

"The mercenaries seem rather focused on ensuring no survivors..." Winter noted. "And if they've gone out of there way to cause so much devastation... If they really wanted to ensure maximum casualties, their next move would be taking down any walls keeping the Grimm at bay."

There was quiet for a moment, as everyone processed those words.

"...Well, shit." Cent said.

"I'll head south." Winter said. "If they're gathering in the north, that seems the most likely place for them to devastate. If you have any information you need to pass on... Yang, I'm sending my scroll's contact information. Pass it on."

A number flashed on the screen, which Yang quickly read out.

"Did you get that?" Yang asked, once she had finished.

"Got it." Cent replied. "My information should come through once I enter this in, right? That's how this new scroll stuff works?"

"Seems right." Yang replied.

"Let's get moving." Winter decided. "I'll pass this information on to the rest of the group, Yang. Keep getting people to safety."

"Got it." She nodded. The line went dead.

"Bye Cent!" Two called. "Hey, hey, come back soon, okay?"

"Miss me?" Cent asked. "In that case, I'll make this quick. It shouldn't take too long, if I stop being sneaky about it."

"Be safe!" Two ordered.

"Don't worry, Two." Cent replied. "I said I'd never die on you, didn't I?"

"Yeah-"

"And I've never lied to you before, have I?"

Two nodded. "Don't start now!"

"I won't, my love. After all, if I died now, I wouldn't be able to admire your beauty anymore."

Two stammered for a moment, blushing heavily, before the line went dead.

"...Man." Yang complained. "What have I got to do to find a guy like that?"

Two shook away her embarrassment, then looked over at the crowd. "Okay, everyone, I'll be back soon. Don't worry, okay? I'll find everyone I can."

The children waved goodbye, and Two turned to leave.

"Hold on." Yang said. "Hold up your scroll for a moment?"

Two stopped, and did so. Yang tapped the two devices together.

"Give me a call if something goes wrong." Yang advised. I'll be looking for people _two_ , okay?"

Two nodded, not reacting to the pun, and Yang ignored her disappointment.

"Be safe!" Two called. At the front of the group, the orange-haired girl with the broken arm nodded, holding up her hammer as it quickly changed form into a gun.

...That didn't _look_ like something that could be fired one-handed, but who knows.

Giving a quick salute to the crowd as well, Yang set off a moment after Two. Taking note of how Two was heading to the left, Yang ran towards the right, to cover more ground.

The empty buildings around Yang were close enough to the safe space that they should be empty, so she headed back towards where she had found the girl, before encountering Two.

Hearing a gunshot nearby, Yang quickly changed path, heading towards it to see what was going on. It took a few moments to get there, but eventually, she slid into a large street.

Standing there, holding a weapon in the opposite direction to Yang, was Piran. Behind him, a group of survivors was resting. They were injured, down the the last man. That guy had a strip of cloth bandaging his arm. That woman was being propped up by other so she wouldn't have to walk on her bloodied leg. Those children were covered in burns and bruises.

"Hey!" Yang called. Piran reacted, but didn't turn around.

"Watch out." He said. "Invisibility Semblance."

Yang froze, a distance from the ground, and immediately fired Ember Celica downwards. The resulting explosion kicked up some dust around her, but nobody grunted in pain or became visible through the dust.

Good, nobody around to ambush her.

Piran's scroll vibrated at his side, but he didn't reach for it. "Did you check the message from Winter?" He asked.

"It's just a note of where the mercenary leader might be." Yang said. "Can you handle thi-"

Piran interrupted her by quickly firing his pistol down the street, the bullets striking the ground in the distance.

"...Got away." He grunted. "Can't go on the offensive, I'll miss him coming closer, I won't be able to cover people."

"I can take them to a safe place?" Yang offered.

"Not while he's still on the move." Piran rejected. "He might follow you and take advantage of the opening."

He slowly swept his gaze around, from one building to another. "Did you hear a door open, Yang?"

The girl blinked, and shook her head. "No, sorry."

He pursed his lips. "Might've been the wind. Might've been the guy moving. Keep an eye on the left, I'll keep an eye on where he was."

Yang kept an eye open for a moment, before an eye came to her.

"I can go on the attack, if you want." Yang said. "You watch people, I'll go in and search.

Piran took a moment to consider. "Go ahead, Yang. Give me a shout if you find them, I'll provide covering power."

Yang smirked, hitting her fists together. "If I find him, just get the people out of here. There's a safe place nearby, and the old man should still be heading there. Find and follow him, you'll get there."

Piran considered it for a moment. "If you wish, Yang." He replied.

The girl didn't wait any longer, running in towards the building Piran had looked towards.

The door swayed in the breeze for a moment, and so Yang went through it. She didn't look around much. Her Aura was strong, getting hit would only make her stronger, and if she baited the invisible man to hit her-

...She was assuming that the blow would be something she could take. Winter had _just_ chewed her out for this.

Stopping her run, Yang looked around.

Nothing.

Walking slowly towards the door out, Yang kept an eye open. Any footsteps she could hear, any traps she could see, anything being moved as if someone was moving near the-

There was wire covering the doorway.

She'd nearly missed it, but there was a wire in the doorway. A tripwire, it looked like. Taking a step away from it, Yang fired Ember Celia at it.

The wire snapped at the explosion near it, and a moment later, the area outside the doorway detonated.

The explosion rocked forth, collapsing the exit of the stone house, and Yang had to brace herself to avoid being pushed back.

That was some powerful explosive. Looks like being careful had it's benefits.

"Good work." Said a voice, from a direction Yang couldn't pinpoint. "You didn't trigger that trap. Looks like we're doing this the hard way."

A stab of pain his Yang from the left, as her Aura pushed away a blade she couldn't see, but whoever caused it was gone before she could counter-attack.

"Too slow, too slow." The voice said again. "What will you do no-"

"In the room?" Yang asked, reloading Ember Celica.

Then she spun, firing as quickly as possible to hit everywhere possible. Left, right, on angles towards the roof, in front of her, behind her, everywhere. There was the sound of movement from-

Above her!

Slipping backwards, Yang heard the sound of something hitting the ground, and fired again. There was a grunt of pain, and her attacker became visible.

...He was younger than she was suspecting. Only about her age, with a whip in his hand. The end of the whip was bladed, and it was long enough and thick enough that he could probably bring it around to make it seem a blow had come from any direction.

A moment passed, as the surprisingly youthful boy gave her a look, one that reflected terror. He stumbled back, as sharpnel from Yang's blast hit him in the arm, drawing blood.

...His Aura was gone?

"Give up." Yang said. "If you come quietly-"

"You'll have me executed without a fight?" The boy asked. "I don't think so."

He spun his arm around, building up momentum with the whip. More blades emerged along it, and a beeping sound filled the air.

He let it go just in time to throw it at Yang, the whip travelling at an angle intended to ensnare her. She leapt back, avoiding the obvious explosive, and shielded her eyes as it detonated.

The roof collapsed, and on the other side of the room, she could see the boy laugh as he ran.

...Damn it.

As the rubble stopped falling, Yang quickly ran over it, but by the time she got through it and out of the building, the boy was gone.

Turning around, Yang saw that Piran and his group had left. Must've run as soon as he heard the first explosion.

Good. The people needed to get out of there.

Yang's scroll started vibrating, but before she could reach for it, a voice came from it anyway.

"Emergency override." Winter stated. "We've got problems. Grimm are pouring in from the south of the village, and my summons have found groups stalking around the village looking for more ways in. This village is as good as lost. I'm calling the airship in to land in the centre of the village, get everyone you can there so we can get them out of harm's way. Respond immediately."

"I copy!" Piran's voice called immediately. "I've got wounded with me, so if the Grimm get in, I'm gonna have problems. Requesting assistance."

"Sending summons." Winter replied. "Yang? Blast?"

"On my way." Yang said.

Blast was silent.

"Blast, respond." Winter said. "Blast?"

"Damn it." Yang swore. Blast was off the radar, people would need escorting towards the airship, Winter might not be able to hold all the Grimm in the south for long, the people to the north were still...

...Blast went north, didn't he? The most threats, the most glory for pulling people out of danger's way up there...

Damn.

 **[X] Go North. Find Blast, make sure he's safe, meet up with Cent and try to find Ren. It'll be dangerous, but she couldn't leave them up there alone.**

 **[X] Back up Piran. There were a lot of people in the safe place, and Piran, a girl with a broken arm and a few summons wouldn't hold for long.**

 **[X] Head for the centre of town. The airship would be landing with nothing but whatever automated protections it had. Having someone guard it would make sure no Grimm or mercenaries got any clever ideas.**


	8. Dance with the Devil

**[X] Back up Piran. There were a lot of people in the safe place, and Piran, a girl with a broken arm and a few summons wouldn't hold for long.**

...Blast would have to take care of himself.

Sure, he was in danger, but that Cent guy was up there, and Blast should be smart enough to run if things start looking dicey.

Piran and the survivors? They didn't have it as lucky. There was too many of them. If they came under attack, they wouldn't be able to just run for it.

"Yang, Piran, focus on the people that need to be evacuated." Winter ordered. "I'll contact Cent and ask him to keep an eye open for Blast. It's too dangerous for either of you to go up their yourselves. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Yang replied.

She didn't like it. She was leaving an ally somewhere dangerous without so much as trying to get them, and leaving them without knowing what was going on. But she couldn't just abandon Piran and the evacuees either. And they needed her more.

"Piran." Yang quickly called over the scroll. "Is there someone called Two with the rest of the evacuees?"

There was silence for a moment, probably Piran double-checking. "Another person with Aura? No, they're not here. Why?"

"Never mind." Yang replied. "I'll get in contact with her. Focus on getting people to the ship, I'll catch up."

"Understood." Piran replied. "Over and out."

Flicking through her scroll quickly, Yang found Two's information in but a moment. It took another moment for Two to answer.

"Hello!" She said. "Hey, now's not a good time, there's a _lot_ of people trying to kill me right now..."

"Just a heads up." Yang said. "Grimm are coming in, so our leader's called in the airship to the centre of town. My teammate's helping people get there, and I'll be with the group in a moment. Don't panic if you go to the safe place and nobody's there."

"Thanks, Yang!" Two called. "Hold on a moment, just let me..."

A deafening string of gunshots fired out, each loud enough that Yang was hearing them twice- One from the scroll, the other echoing through town a fraction of a second later. Or at least, she assumed so. There was enough per second that it was hard to tell how long the delay really was.

"Last warning!" Two shouted. "Step away from the children!"

There was muffled movements for a moment, and some sobbing, before Two spoke again.

"Centre of town, you said?" Two asked. "I'm close to there. I'll take these kids there now and keep it safe while you and your friend get everyone else in, okay?"

"Got it." Yang said, but Two had already moved on.

"It's okay, it's okay." She said in a soft voice. There was a thud, like a scroll falling to the ground, and Two's voice grew more distant. "Just close your eyes and don't look, okay? It's going to be okay. I won't let anything bad happen."

Feeling that Two was done with the conversation, Yang ended the call and put her scroll away, and started running.

As she ran, Yang observed the area around here.

This village was surprisingly big, all things considered. A lot of buildings with multiple floors, probably home to a good number of people. It had to have been well populated, must have gotten a lot of refugees from other places. The reason they'd been called into the town in the first place was because it was having a population issue, so it was likely there was more people here than the number of buildings would initially imply.

All things considered, the amount of survivors she'd seen at the safe place was rather low.

...Maybe more people had gotten away. Maybe some had found vehicles somewhere and had made a run from it at the start of the attack. Maybe some of them had hidden away where nobody had found them.

The thought didn't help much. With the Grimm approaching and the smell of burning flesh in the air, it was hard to appreciate the idea that there could be people here that Yang didn't know about.

And right on cue, Yang heard a squawk. Looking into the air, her worst suspicions were confirmed.

Nevermores. Multiple, of various sizes, but there was at least one giant one there. The giant was just big enough to swallow a human whole, but even if it was on the smaller end of giant Grimm, it was still enough of a threat that Yang couldn't deal with it.

Hell, Signal had taught that it wasn't unusual for a team of first-year Beacon students to have trouble with a giant Nevermore. That, plus a few smaller ones that still managed to be about Yang's size?

She couldn't kill that.

She could fight it, maybe survive, buy time for people to get away, but this was the kind of threat that led to stories of career-ending injuries, in more optimistic cases.

It was fortunate, then, that Winter was well above the level of a Signal student.

With a ferocious roar, a few ghostly draconic figures rose up from the horizon, making a beeline for the Nevermores. The Nevermores swooped away and fired some wings at the attackers, who spat out phantasmal fireballs and continued on the attack. One of the Wyverns was hit in the wing and began to fall before fading appear, but several of the smaller Nevermores fell as well, and the larger one was pushed into a retreating battle.

It'd be a close fight, and Yang didn't know who would win, but it'd take long enough and take the Nevermore far enough away that it shouldn't be a threat, for a bit longer at least.

When she had more time, Yang would have to take a moment to complain about how experienced Hunters were so far ahead of her. Maybe tell Ruby the story, she'd love hearing about the more battle-focused aspects of this. The mass death, not so much, but the fighting, sure.

Continuing her run, Yang heard the sound of combat somewhere nearby.

Piran, probably.

Turning direction slightly, Yang made a dash for the sound of combat, hoping that everything would be fine. Bursting out of an alleyway, she took a moment to figure out what was going on.

Another mercenary was here, battling Piran. The boy was fighting in the street, keeping the merc away from another alleyway, which was probably where the evacuees were.

Not wasting any more time, Yang broke in.

"Sucker Punch!" She shouted, punching at the air and firing Ember Celica at the sucker. The mercenary turned and drew a line in the air in front of him. The projectile hit the line, split in two, and hit either side of the mercenary.

Before Yang could fire again, Piran took a step forward, throwing something. In the air in front of him, a log of a tree suddenly appeared, spinning as it grew until it covered the length of the street.

The mercenary saw it at the last second, turned and traced another air line, but it was a moment too late. The downward line had gone down the distance between his head to the centre of his chest before the giant log hit, and Yang lost sight of him as he and the log travelled into the distance.

"Neat trick." Yang noted. "Looks like your bark and bite aren't that different."

"Nice to see you, Yang." Piran noted. "Terrible puns aside, thanks. I'm not sure I could've thrown that fast enough if you hadn't distracted him."

Yang looked over at the giant log. "You, uh, gonna fix that?"

"Too big." Piran replied. "It'd take too long to get a good enough grip."

"You need to hold it to shrink it?" Yang asked.

Piran looked at her. "Oh, I never explained just how my Semblance works, did I?"

"You can tell me on the way to the airship." Yang said. "Let's go."

Piran nodded. "Follow me, we'll go around this street."

"There does seem to be a fallen tree blocking the way." Yang noted, as she followed him. "Maybe you should call emergency services to have it moved."

"I imagine they'd be busy." Piran noted drily.

"How'd it go?" Asked a voice from within the alleyway. As Yang stepped into it, she saw it was the orange-haired girl.

"I won." Piran replied. "Now let's go, Nora. No time to delay."

The Nora girl nodded, and turned to the group.

"Alright everyone!" She declared. "Everyone stick with your buddy! Especially the kids! If you get lost, I'm eating your dessert!"

Yang smiled slightly, as the girl marched ahead, leading the group out of the alleyway.

Yang and Piran followed from the back. The group was small enough that they'd be able to get to the front of the group in a heartbeat, and unlike Nora, they were intact enough that a blow from behind wouldn't take them out of the fight.

"So, how does your Semblance work?" Yang asked.

"I can only control the size of things I can spin." Piran replied. "Spin something clockwise, it gets bigger. Anticlockwise, it gets smaller. If it's too big for me to get a grip, won't move or something I can't touch, it doesn't work."

"Huh." Yang noted. "Must be a pain, spinning things."

"It's still useful." Piran replied. "And I don't have to be directly touching it, as long as I made it spin while it's close enough for my Aura to work. My gun's set up to spin bullets if I pull the trigger the right way, and that works. And besides, don't you need to get hurt for your Semblance to work?"

"I do get stronger as I take more damage, yes." Yang replied. "Speaking of which, how's your Aura?"

"I'm good." Piran replied. "Haven't taken too much damage. I'd estimate about... Seventy, seventy five percent?"

"That much?"

"I don't have that much to start with." Piran replied. "And I only lost that much because invisible bomber caught me off guard."

"Ah." Yang noted. "Speaking of, he got away. His Aura was out, and it only took one hit to down him and knock his Semblance off, but I don't know if he's one of those people who can use their Semblance while out of usable Aura, and he might still have explosive traps."

Piran nodded. "I had expected as much. I had warned everyone here to keep an eye out for the explosive wire. Notice how Nora's walking a good distance in front of the group?"

Yang looked ahead, and saw that she was. "Is that safe?"

"Her Aura's fairly strong." Piran noted. "She's confident in being able to take a hit, and thinks it's better her than someone who can fight."

There was a sudden sound on Yang's scroll, and the girl reached for it. A message from Two.

"Yang!" The blue-haired girl called. "I'm at the airship, but so are the bad guys!"

"What's the problem?" Yang asked immediately.

"Well, I got all the children on board, but as soon as I did the airship's turret thingy started firing into a building, I ran in to investigate, but then the building blew up and I had to stop and use my Song to stop the rubble from hitting the airship."

Yang took a moment to process that. "Stay near the ship." She advised. "If the other buildings go down-"

"I know, I know!" Two called. "But making a shield the right size and shape to protect the ship and send the rubble away so I can take it down later is hard, and I can't fight like that! Can you hurry up and get here, in case the next building comes down while we're under attack?"

Taking a moment to calm her breathing, Yang agreed. "Be right there."

"Be right where?"

Yang turned upwards at the voice, looking up to the roof of the ruined building she was walking by.

At the top of it stood a man in the mercenary armour. No, not exactly the same. His was fancier. A sign of importance if Yang had ever seen one. His armour was bulkier, more fancy, and included a helmet that exposed his face, and a rather impressive if sinister moustache and beard. He looked down at the group, and Yang felt a sudden worry.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"The man this town cheated out of his payment." The mercenary replied. "I wouldn't have had to order this if they just kept their promise, you know?"

The leader had stepped out of the shadows.

"You bastard." Yang growled. "You didn't get your pay, so you decide everyone has to die?"

"A Kingdom dweller, I assume." The man replied. "You'd understand if you had lived out here. My men fought and died to protect the people of this town from Grimm attacks. If they didn't have the resources to afford our service, they should have protected themselves."

Yang curled her fist as she looked up at the man.

She couldn't just let him get away with this.

...But she didn't know if she could beat him, either. If he was the leader, odds were he was the strongest.

But that was fine. She didn't need to win. She just needed to hold the line long enough that the survivors were able to get to the airship.

But first, she needed a plan.

 **[X] Attack immediately. Put him on the defensive, push him away from the group, and keep his attention.**

 **[X] Bait him into a monologue. If he was distracted, some more people might slip away, and then he could be hit mid-sentence.**

 **[X] Run for it. Try to lure him away. If it doesn't work, you can double back and try for a sneak attack.**

Of course, Yang isn't the only one present. Even if people have to run for the ship, she will get help somehow. But how?

 **[X] Nora stays behind and provides covering fire. She won't help much, but Piran needs to guard the airship more.**

 **[X] Piran sends the group ahead and fights at Yang's side. Nora will be less useful at the airship, but Yang will have a better chance.**

 **[X] Both leave, and Piran sends a message to Winter requesting Summons to assist Yang. But until they arrive, Yang will be alone.**


	9. You Might Die Trying

**[X] Bait him into a monologue. If he was distracted, some more people might slip away, and then he could be hit mid-sentence.**

 **[X] Both leave, and Piran sends a message to Winter requesting Summons to assist Yang. But until they arrive, Yang will be alone.**

Stepping forward to be the closest to the man, Yang put her hands together and cracked her knuckles. As she did so, she tilted her head to the side. It was subtle, but hopefully, it was enough for Piran to notice.

It was a hard line, between gesturing in a way that made it obvious to allies but unnoticeable to enemies. If she didn't get her meaning across...

Well, no matter. Piran should be smart enough.

"So, this is all your fault?" Yang asked. "You're the reason that there are children without parents right now?"

"They made the decision to harm my people to advantage theirs." The man in black said. "And in these lands, letting such an insult go unanswered is an invitation to be brought low. If I allowed these people to get away with conning me and my men, then anyone who heard of it would try the same. After all, what reason would they have not to?"

"Yeah, because that'll be good for business." Yang replied. "Killing your clients is usually great for your reputation, I hear."

"You speak as someone who has never lived outside the Kingdoms." The man replied. "The people of this land are reliable in one thing only. They will do anything that gives them a better chance of survival. This village will be an example. When dealing with us, keeping your bargains is the path to survival."

"Just an example to you?" Yang asked. "So the lives of these people mean nothing to you?"

"It means as much to me as my life is to them." He replied. "Which is to say-"

There was a cry of pain, and Yang spun around.

Standing there, behind the crowd of people which had began to shuffle away towards an exit over time, was an exact duplicate of the man in black armour. The only difference was in the colour of their equipment- While the man on the rooftop was covered in black plate, the second was clad in complete white gear.

The man clad in white had a hand held upwards, grasping a small child by the throat.

Yang's eyes widened, and she took a step towards the scene as the crowd scattered, running from the sight, only for a movement out of the corner of her eye to give away the movement of the man in black.

She spun around again, bringing up her arms to cover her vitals, just in time for the man's own fist to strike at her, knocking her down.

Jumping to her feet before the momentum finished pushing her away, Yang looked up in time to watch a projectile fly at the man in black, who moved to bat it away. It exploded on contact with his hand, and the explosion, plus subsequent cloud of dust, covered Yang's vision.

Looking towards the man in white, Yang saw Piran lunge at him, only for the man to tighten his grip around the child's throat.

There was a snapping sound, and when the white armoured man threw the body at Piran, it crumpled lifelessly.

Stepping out of the cloud of dust, the man in black held a hand to the side. The gauntlet on his arm began shifting, and with his other hand, he reached for what looked like a harpoon on his back.

Yang fired Ember Celica at him, as she ran at the man in white. As she passed Piran, who was gently moving the corpse that had landed on him, she spoke.

"Run!" She called. "I'll hold them off!"

"But-"

There was a scream, as the man in black threw his harpoon into the crowd. There was a splash of blood, as they ran, and the man in white ran after them.

Yang fired Ember Celica at the one in white, and Piran, watching, dashed towards the crowd.

"Don't you dare die!" He shouted, as he pulled something out of his pocket. Then, with a twist of his hand, he threw it on the ground in front of him.

The boulder which grew on the street quickly blocked off the passageway, leaving Yang alone with the two identical armoured figures.

For a moment, nothing happened. Yang kept an eye on both figures, quickly flickering her gaze between one man and the other, watching for one to make a move to get past the boulder. After a moment of neither moving, the man in white began walking _away_ from the escaping civilians.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Yang asked, snarling. She'd seen the man fire into a crowd, and even if she hadn't, there was a corpse right in front of her, of someone who looked like they never made it to double digits.

The man didn't respond, either of them.

Yang's eyes lingered on the body in front of her. Someone who had died, who she hadn't saved. Because of _this fucker_.

Looking up with red eyes, Yang charged at the man in white.

The white-armoured man caught her fist, then let go when Yang fired Ember Celica at him. She heard a footstep behind her, and quickly moved to the side as the man in black kicked at her. Before she could dodge further, however, he levelled his arm with her, and his transformed weapon fired.

The harpoon hit Yang in the arm, a rope trailing behind it, and she could _feel_ her Aura strain keeping it at bay. When it didn't fall away, she moved to rip the harpoon away, but the man in black pulled at the rope, and Yang went flying towards him.

The harpoon fell away from whatever grip it had on her Aura just as Yang passed underneath the man, who punched her down into the dirt. Before she could react further, the man in white was at her side, and his kick sent her into a building.

The wood cracked and broke on the impact, and she rolled inside, through the flames, before she was able to stand. Just as she did, however, the man in black was at her side again, holding on to her arm and throwing her out again.

The man in white caught her, and his grip shifted around her throat, putting pressure on her Aura as it struggled to protect her vital organs.

The man in black stepped out of the burning building a moment later, lining up a harpoon shot as Yang was held immobile. He fired, again straining her Aura, and when the harpoon reeled in again, the man in white slammed her into the ground and held her in place.

Grinding against the floor, Yang was stretched for a moment, until the man in white began walking closer to the man in black. Grinding her against the ground with increasing amounts of force, Yang struggled to stand for a moment.

After a moment, she felt a hand against her throat again, and Yang quickly found herself slammed against a wall. Looking forward, she could see the man in white glaring at her.

Feeling the pressure at her neck increase, Yang wheezed to talk. "There's... Two of you..."

"How observant." The man in black said.

"But you're both here..." She groaned out. "Fighting me, not killing..."

The man in white tightened his grip as the man in black drew closer.

"And what of it?" The black-armoured man asked.

"Semblance..." She wheezed. "Can't... Be distant..."

"Is that the last thing you're ever going to think?" The man in white asked. "My Semblance?"

Yang tried to laugh, even as her Aura began struggling to protect her.

"Enjoy your last joke." The man in black ordered.

"I will..." Yang replied.

If this was a spar back in Signal, her Aura would have been well past the point where the match was called. She didn't think her Aura had ever been this low. Another hit from that harpoon would punch right through it and draw blood.

In other words, Yang had never been stronger.

Pulling her head forwardly slightly, Yang closed her eyes and slammed back, headbutting the wall as hard as she could. Almost instantly, it shattered, and the man in white stumbled forward due to the force he was using to pin Yang to the wall.

Feeling the hand around her throat loosening, Yang smiled, and aimed her fists at the man's face.

Ember Celica fired, both fists at once, and the man fell right into the blasts. He was sent backwards, and as Yang hit the ground, she quickly rolled through the building and out of the line of fire.

Before the man could seek her out, she dashed through a wall, breaking through it as if it wasn't there, and reached the man's side with a burst of speed that she wasn't capable of before. The sudden increase caught him off guard, and before he could react, she hit him in the face, firing Ember Celica again as she did so.

Yang had the momentum for this moment, but she couldn't keep it. Not when the man had two bodies. She could pressure one, but the other would blindside her. And even as she was, she couldn't fight two people on this level for long.

But she didn't have to. She just had to buy time, for Piran and the civilians to get away. However long that took, she didn't know. But her win condition was never walking away with this guy on the ground.

Firing Ember Celica again, this time at the man in white, Yang hit the man in black again, before reaching for the harpoons he had on his back.

Those things were the biggest threat, right now. The man was strong, but she'd be able to take another hit or two without being taken out of the fight. The harpoons? One good shot with those, and she was dead.

Taking the harpoons, Yang threw them into the distance, over the burning buildings and away from the fight.

There. Threat weakened. The only issue now was if-

Yang rolled to the side, as another harpoon flew out from the burning building. It hit the wall of the building against the street, and the rope attached to the end of it shot to the side, as the man in white began running.

Ducking under it so it wouldn't entangle her, Yang watched the rope fall as she ducked under it, and saw the man in white reaching for another harpoon. She rushed at him, dashing left and right as she did so to throw off any aim of his, before reaching punching range.

Her fist flew at his face, and the man caught the fist. There was a brief struggle, before Yang fired Ember Celica, and the man ducked out of the way of the shot. Taking the opportunity, Yang brought her knee up, hitting the white armoured man in the face, before ripping the harpoon out of his weapon.

She heard movement behind her, and turned just in time to see the man in black armour make a throwing movement. Her eye's widened, as she saw the projectile.

It was a severed arm from the child's corpse.

Staring at it for a moment, Yang only moved to sidestep it as she took into account the implications.

The bastard was _mutilating a corpse_ to hit at her.

Snarling, Yang ran at him. A shout escaped her lips as she punched at him, and the man blocked the blow with the palm of his hand., and recoiled when Ember Celica fired. Bringing her left hand around as well, Yang moved to repeat the manoeuvre, but spike of pain through her back stopped her.

Trying to fight through it, Yang moved to punch again, but was suddenly reeled back, and hit the ground. The spike of pain increased as whatever it was drove deeper in on impact, and after a moment, Yang steadily stood.

"So easily angered." The man in white said, and Yang looked at him just in time to see him pull a rope. She cried out again as she was pulled off her feet, and with a sudden terror, she realised what was causing her pain.

Looking around at her back as she laid crumpled on the floor, Yang saw the harpoon embedded in her flesh, just below her ribcage.

"You..." She whispered, before a foot came down on her back, in line with her ribs. Yang cried out, as she heard the sound of snapping bones.

"You had nothing to do with this, girl." The man said. "These were not your people. They had done nothing for you. You had not crossed me before now. But you chose to oppose me, child."

There was another spike of pain, as the man pulled the harpoon out of Yang. Her vision was getting fuzzy.

The foot moved from her back, and a hand reached around her neck. The white armoured man held her in the air, gently this time, and held her to face the man in black. As he approached, the man in black picked up the harpoon which had stuck Yang from the back.

Before he could prepare for a finishing blow, however, an explosion behind him distracted him, making the man whirl around.

"So you're the leader." Said a voice recognised, but couldn't identify through the pain. "Well then. I suppose it's a good thing I came in person, then."

A ghastly white figure blurred out of the building, striking at the man in black. The man in white saw this, and tightened his grip around Yang's neck, trying to crush her throat before her saviour could stop him, but some force from outside of Yang's perspective struck at him, and as he stumbled forward, Yang saw an opportunity.

Ember Celica fired again. Without her Aura, Yang couldn't take the blast without consequences, and she felt the force break something as she fell, and there would definitely be burns over this. But it was enough that the pressure around her throat vanished, and when Yang fell to the ground with a sickening thud, she was still alive.

Badly hurt, but alive.

The two men who had attacked her were fighting something else, but Yang saw none of it. After a moment, she felt someone wrap their arms around her, and in a flash, she was being held on a rooftop above the fight.

"Yang." Said a voice, and taking a moment to look through the pain, the huntress in training saw Winter holding her.

"Ma'am-" Yang croaked out, before coughing.

"Save your strength." Winter ordered. "You did good down there, Yang, Just rest now. The airship has medical equipment, and these wounds are fresh. We can have you as good as new in a week. Just save your strength, and don't let yourself pass out until you get there."

"But-"

Winter closed her eyes, and Yang heard a Summon manifest behind her. The Schnee shifted, and Yang felt herself being placed on the back of a ghostly Nevermore.

"Try to hold on." Winter said. "I'll finish this."

Winter let her go as the Nevermore shifted, keeping Yang balanced on it's back, and prepared to take off. Looking to the side, Yang saw Winter step off the building, and move to end the fight.

...Rest sounded good. It sounded real good, right now...

 **[X] ...No. She'd started this fight. She wasn't leaving it until that bastard was beaten. Roll off the Nevermore. She can still shoot.**

 **[X] Just need to rest... (Temporary Perspective Change)**

 **-[X] Look through the eyes of Winter Schnee**

 **-[X] Observe the actions of Piran Caledfwlch**

 **-[X] Watch the performance of Blast Yellowstone**


	10. Cold as Ice

**[X] Just need to rest... (Temporary Perspective Change)**

 **-[X] Look through the eyes of Winter Schnee**

Her Nevermore flew off, carrying the injured girl on it's back, and Winter Schnee put the thought of Yang Xiao Long out of her mind.

She could be concerned about that later. For now, she had an opponent to kill.

The two identical figures, differing only in the colour of their armour, looked at Winter.

"A Schnee?" The one in black asked.

"That hardly matters." Winter replied. "You don't need to know anything about me. You will be dead momentarily."

The two men ran at her, flanking her so that one approached her left and one her right. Winter waited for a moment, to allow them to approach, before calling forth her Summons.

Twenty Beowulf's weren't a threat to someone of this level of power. but it was still ten each, and it would take them time to bash through the bodies. The only weapons they seemed to possess was their gauntlets and the harpoons she could see on their backs, and that meant their range was low when they weren't shooting.

It was an interesting Semblance, being able to possess two bodies. But it was also an ability that was predictable. In essence, fighting him meant you were fighting two foes at once. Against a single foe, that could be deadly. But against Winter, it was pointless. The main advantage was that the foe she fought would outnumber his enemy most of the time. Winter, however, could reverse that in a heartbeat.

The one armoured in white fired a harpoon, which ripped through the ghostly Beowulf's and came within a hair of striking at Winter, but her blade deflected it before it could strike at her.

It only took a few seconds for the two figures to slay most of the Beowulfs, but in that second, Winter had prepared her next move.

Swarms of weaker summons wasn't the best tactic against singular powerful foes. Against the Grimm she had fought to the south, it was fine, but even then, once the more powerful Grimm started approaching, their usefulness faded. For more powerful foes, she needed to make use of more powerful summons.

The white-armoured figure came into range of Winter, and threw a fist. Winter's sword clanged against his armour, as the arm was forced to the side. The man stopped his momentum before he could stumble forward, and Winter shifted her arm, striking the man in the face with the hilt of her sword. Then she took a step to the side, and looked upon the new summons coming forth.

A humanoid shape carrying an oversized axe dashed at the black-armoured figure, and slashed the weapon into the dark armour. The man grunted in pain, but took the shaft of the axe in his hand, and squeezed hard enough to shatter it. The axehead faded away, and a fist through the summon's chest ended its existence. A large cut was left in his armour, but not enough to expose flesh.

Winter waved her blade, and a glyph appeared before her. Birds began emerging from it, firing at the white-armoured figure with force equal to one of her blows. The incredible number of blows forced it on the defensive, and taking the opportunity, Winter dashed at the figure in black.

A glyph appeared under her to increase her speed, and the sudden burst of increased speed caught the man off guard. He moved to catch Winter's blade as she approached, but a moment too slow. Her blade stuck at the gash in the armour, smashing through it and striking at flesh. The increased danger of the blow drew more Aura from the man than before, and Winter the pain etched on his face was enough to let Winter know she had an opportunity.

Another glyph formed underneath his feet, and Winter pulled out her blade and jumped back just as it took effect. The black-armoured man ran at her, but the glyph took effect, and his movements slowed to a crawl.

That particular glyph would make it difficult to damage the black-armoured man while he was within it, but it also kept him out of the fight for a while, leaving only one body remaining.

Winter looked at the white-armoured man, blade in her hand. With a brief gesture, several more summons rose up before her, all of which charged as she pointed her blade forward.

The first summon, a humanoid figure with bull's horns, stepped into range first, jabbing forward with a spear fast enough that dodging wasn't an option, with enough force that blocking forced the mercenary leader back, putting him in a position where he had to walk back to avoid being overwhelmed. Then, as he approached the wall, the man dashed to the wall, running up it, before coming down on the bull man and crushing his skull with a fist. As the summon faded, the second came into reach.

The second form, a sort of amphibious Grimm that Winter had fought years ago, was slow to move, but the spearman had served his purpose well enough. By the time he had died, the spearman had brought time for the Grimm to get into range, lunging at the mercenary and unfolding it's tentacles. Suction caps attached to the man all over, and the ghostly Grimm slowly squeezed, pining the white-armoured man's arms to his side and trying to crush him through his armour.

The man in white struggled agains the grip for a moment, slowly pulling his arm away from his side, but it took too long, giving time for Winter's next summon to make it's move.

The last two of the group summoned, the giant Creep and the Cerberus, ran at the man at once. The three-headed hound reached him first, scooping up both man and Grimm in a single bite, and began chewing. The other two heads moved the body as it focused on keeping the man contained and in pain, walking towards the slightly green-glowing Creep.

As it did so, the Cerberus' centre head bowed, and the Creep crept onto it. A moment passed, and Winter prepared to order the Creep to detonate.

Then there was a crunching sound, and a fist emerged from the Cerberus' fangs. Acting immediately, Winter detonated the Creep, but the dark figure escaped the jaws and leapt to the side at the last moment.

...The dark figure.

Looking back at her glyph of slowed movement, Winter saw that it was empty. How-

The Creep and ruined Cerberus head faded away, revealing an incredibly injured white-armoured figure. But then, as if in response to her gaze, the white-armour blinked out, and the man in black walked forward a step. As he did so, the man in white appeared where he had been standing a moment before.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" The man asked.

In response, Winter leapt into the middle of the two men, pulling at her blade as she did so. The second sword hidden within folded out, and Winter struck at both men at once. They blocked, and then moved to attack. It was trivial, redirecting their blows away from her, and Winter's blades danced as they repelled fist after fist, from either direction.

A pair of glyphs appeared under Winter's feet, and her speed increased, allowing her to strike faster, allowing her to punish every wrong move from her opponents. They still had the advantage, but Winter would hold out long enough for the plan to work.

She had one more summon, not within range of the fight, that had accomplished it's mission. And even now, it was on it's way.

The blades gave a graceful dance as they struck at armour and diverted fists, but her opponent's movements were pragmatic and controlled. Every blow against her could have been devastating if it hit, every blow only left an opening that could be quickly covered, and the blows kept coming fast enough to prevent Winter from taking the initiative. The one in white pulled a harpoon from his back and moved to stab Winter, but was easily disarmed. The harpoon fell to the floor, and Winter quickly moved her left hand to block a blow from the man in right behind her.

Enough time had passed.

The Cerberus resumed movement at last, ignoring the loss of it's middle head as it charged at the battle. The man in white turned to deal with it, loading and firing a harpoon through the gap between heads and plunging into where it's heart would be. Winter took the chance to bring both blades against the black-armoured warrior, who took a step back and was put on the defensive.

Winter's Cerberus faded from the killing blow, and the summon that had approached behind it suddenly became visible. Before either man could react, the ghostly Nevermore took flight, grabbing the white-armoured man with both talons and flying off with him. Winter activated the second rune under her feet, creating a barrier around her and the man in black, and stabbed forward again.

Some sort of bond connected the two identical figures, and as the white armoured man was dragged out of range, the man in black was forced back into the invisible barrier, crying out as he did so.

Winter felt her Nevermore lose it's grip on the white armoured figure, and a hand emerged from the chest of the black-armoured man. Perfect.

Making a hole in her barrier and stepping out of it, Winter quickly created another Creep within it, just as the man in white fully emerged from the man in black.

Before either could react, it exploded. The barrier shattered and faded, and there was a cloud of dust for a moment.

Winter looked over it for a moment, then slowly stepped forward. The man in black stumbled out of the dust, and Winter took a blade to his throat.

Aura shattered, and the mercenary leader gurgled on blood as he collapsed. Behind him, Winter heard another thud, of someone falling. It appears as if defeating one had defeated the other.

Stepping away for a moment, Winter pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket, and wiped her blade clean of blood.

A tough foe, but nothing she hadn't dealt with before. Yang had done a surprising amount of damage to his Aura, so it was easier than it could have been, too.

Looking over at the corpses as the dust faded, Winter took a moment to consider what to do with them.

She cared nothing for the man. He was a criminal, and a murderer. Not a particularly famous one, either. There wasn't likely to be a bounty on him, so proof of death was of no use to Winter.

But, perhaps Yang Xiao Long deserved some sort of trophy for this battle. She had done remarkably well, for a child of her age. It was the level of quality that Winter's father had always expected of his children, and he had the funds to buy the services of the best mentors, to train perfection in every action.

Yes, her performance certainly deserved some form of recognition. It wasn't uncommon for Hunters to take trophies of their victories, at least for a smile time. Perhaps Yang would take his gauntlet or armour as a token of her victory. Or perhaps she'd use the more... Barbaric trophy, of a skull on a stick.

Either way, she deserved something for doing as well as she did. Especially considering the circumstances. Piran had informed her that Yang told everyone else to run, so she had known she couldn't defeat him alone, and yet still fought...

As she sheathed her swords, Winter manifested another two summons, both Beowulfs, to carry the corpses. Even if Yang didn't want a trophy, it was still possible that Winter was wrong and there was some form of bounty for the man. She could take that instead.

But, time was of the essence now. She had delayed the Grimm for long enough, but she had left them some time ago to slay the mercenary leader. By now, there was likely only a small amount of time before the village was overrun. It would be wise to have the airship on it's way out before Grimm started trying to take it down.

The boulder blocking the street took a moment to run around, but it wasn't long at all, before Winter reached the airship.

The ship was surrounded by rubble, but the airship itself was unharmed. And standing on top of it was-

"Hey!" A voice called, and the blue haired girl standing on top of it jumped down, landing in front of Winter. "You're the one in charge, right? I'm-"

"Two." Winter interrupted, looking at the familiar mark on her forehead. "I've been told about you."

The blue haired girl nodded. "Yeah? Good things?"

Winter looked at her. "Nothing bad." She said, after a moment.

Two beamed. "Good! I've heard good things about you, you know!"

"Is everyone here?" Winter asked.

Two nodded. "Your ghost-thing carried Yang back ages ago, Piran followed her into the airship after driving off explosion boy 'cause his arm got hurt, and Cent arrived with everyone from the North just a few moments ago."

"Then we leave immediately." Winter said, walking past Two onto the airship.

"Huh? Oh, okay, off we go!"

As Two followed Winter up, the airship door began to close.

...Two was different to what Winter had expected, she thought as she pulled out her scroll.

With a few button presses, the airship began to rise. Just as the doors began to close, Winter gestured out of it, summoning a bunch of flying summons in the process. "How many survivors are there?" She asked.

"Didn't count." Two said. "A lot of kids. A lot of badly hurt ones, too. Your medical area's filled up, Piran refused to have his arm looked at so people could get their wounds healed up first."

Winter's Beowulf's threw the mercenaries corpses over the doors just as they closed, and then they faded. Two looked at them for a moment, her smile growing framed.

"That's him, then?" She asked.

Winter nodded. "That's the leader."

Two looked at it for a moment. "Hey, d'you mind if I search the body? He might be dead, but people want a name, and I might be able to find on eif he had a wallet or something on him."

"Feel free." Winter permitted. "I'll be seeing my students in the medical area now. If you need me, just say so."

Two nodded, then looked over to the bodies. For a moment, Winter considered whenever or not she wanted to have the conversation now, but decided against it. Two may be permitted to hear what she had to say, but right now, there was too much of a chance that someone walking past and overhearing too much classified information.

Leaving Two with the corpses, Winter looked over her scroll a bit more, then quickly typed out a message to be sent home. A report on what had happened so far. This was bigger than she was expecting, so sending a report early would be a smart idea.

Once her report was done, Winter put her Scroll away, and stepped into the medical bay.

Yang was on the closest bed to the door, unconscious. Her wounds were being patched together, her breathing and heartbeat were being monitored and regulated, and there was a dust generator sitting nearby trying to kickstart her Aura, to assist in the healing.

She'd be out for a while. Winter would speak with her when she regained consciousness.

Standing near her was Piran, who had an arm wrapped in bloodstained bandages.

"Piran." Winter spoke, and the boy quickly looked up at her and gave a salute.

"At ease." The Schnee ordered. "What happened with your arm?"

"Invisible bomber." Piran replied. "Well, he was a bit less invisible without his Aura, but he still had a lot of traps. He kept bringing down buildings, so I had to injure him to force him away. Got caught in an explosion to do it, broke through my Aura, and my arm took the brunt of it.

"And why aren't you having it tended to?" Winter asked.

"I can live with it." Piran replied. "I'm a Hunter. I signed up to get hurt for the sake of others. Those kids didn't. Even if it means having this arm be useless for the rest of the month, it doesn't matter."

"Don't be a fool." Winter ordered. "Putting others before yourself is admirable, but if you leave yourself short a limb for the month, you're as good as dead."

"...As you command, ma'am." Piran replied.

"As you were, then." Winter replied. Piran nodded, and went back to watching Yang.

...He did run from the fight at her order, didn't he? Piran probably felt responsible, to some degree, for what had happened.

Winter took a moment to look around the cramped medical bay. Off in the corner, she saw an orange-haired girl talking excitedly to a boy in a...

...Well, the shirt looked like it was initially green, but there was a lot of blood covering it. He struggled for a moment to sit up, before the girl pushed him back down. Likely wise. Winter could see a cut in that shirt that was surrounded by the majority of the blood. He seemed badly hurt, and too much movement could cause more bleeding.

Sitting close to them, wearing an open jacket and a rather excessive amount of belts, was-

"Blast Yellowstone." Winter ordered. "Report."

Blast looked up at her. "Not too many injuries', boss." He said.

"Why are you in here?" She asked.

"Just having the machines check up on me. Broke a finger bone, but that's it."

"What did you do after your deployment?" Winter asked.

"My Semblance is a _bi-_ , uh, pain." Blast said. "I mean, it's really cool in a fight, but it also usually _leads_ to a lot of fights, y'know?"

...Right. His Semblance. It bore a rather uncanny resemblance to a certain old man who never failed to get on Winter's nerves, despite her best efforts.

"What exactly happened?" Winter asked.

"Well, I heard gunshots." Blast explained. "So I went to investigate, and ended up in the north of the village. Saved a few people from attackers, but then some woman with lightning abilities tried to fry me. Naturally, my Semblance kicked in then, and it helped me block the attack. It's just that, uh, I didn't realise until after I got away that I blocked it with my scroll, which is kinda busted..."

Winter looked at him.

"...Is there any spares?"

She was rather tempted to turn it into a glare.

"Well..." Blast continued. "After that, I got into a lot of fight. Beat up some people. Turns out, they were gathering in the north. Most of the chain of command was up there. Then I say that Ren kid take one of them out, but then the rest jumped on him, and, well, I could hardly leave him alone to fight a dozen people like that."

"I see." Winter said. "So you jumped into a near impossible fight with no way of knowing if you could survive it."

"...Well, I won, didn't I?"

"How?"

"...Okay, I got back-up." Blast admitted. "That Cent guy saved the day, was pretty cool. But me and Ren were fighting for a while before that, and I probably could have gotten away if I didn't have to carry Ren around after he got hit like that."

Winter nodded. "I understand."

"You do?"

"On our next deployment, you are not to be out of my sight."

Blast groaned. "Why does every authority figure do this to me..."

Winter left him to his complaints, and turned to leave the medical bay, when a certain blue-haired girl walked in.

"Two." Winter said. "Is there something you wanted?"

Two nodded. "Where's the airship landing?"

"...I was going to take it near the forest." Winter said. "Of our objectives, it's the closest one to us. Why?"

Two held up a small scroll, one outdated decades ago. "I found this on the mercenary leader guy."

Winter took the offered scroll, and browsed through what Two had left open.

It was a picture of the mercenary leader, with a girl that looked a lot like him riding on his shoulders.

"What is this?"

"He was a bad guy." Two said. "But it looks like he had a daughter."

Winter flicked through the images, seeing a lot more of the girl. Her hair was black, and she was... Rather thin. Skin was not meant to cling to the bone that much.

"Even if he deserved bad things, well, I don't want to leave someone out here alone." Two said. "We should go find her, shouldn't we?"

Winter considered it for a moment.

"We'll be landing in a village not far from here." Winter said. "The airship doesn't have supplies to carry too many people across too far a distance, and we'll stay there for a bit to give people time to properly recover in the medical bay. After that-"

She paused. On the one hand, Signal had given her a path, and it would reflect poorly on her and Atlas if she deviated too much. On the other...

Winter's eyes flicked up to the roman numerals on Two's forehead.

...Winter's obligation regarding the Intoners was more important, in the end. With the sort of power the known Intoners had demonstrated...

Well, the message had been sent, and Winter had heard that Yang had acquired Two's contact information. Two would want to stay in contact once Winter shared the information she had, so monitoring her in person wasn't exactly a requirement...

Thinking it over for a moment, Winter decided.

 **[X] "-We'll help you look for her." Follow Two, monitor her, and talk to her when the time is right.**

 **[X] "-We'll let you look for her." Let Two do her own thing, but get her alone to talk to her as soon as possible.**


	11. Unfamiliar Ceilings

**[X] "-We'll help you look for her." Follow Two, monitor her, and talk to her when the time is right.**

Yang Xiao Long awoke to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling.

It was a rather boring ceiling, really. Not very colourful, no decorations, just a greyish metal without a stain or scratch. It was like watching grass grow, except if you watched it for long enough there would be a noticeable change, thus making looking at the unfamiliar ceiling somehow even more boring.

This was no good. Yang tiled her head to the side in order to hopefully see something more interesting, and instantly regretted it when she felt pain shoot through her neck.

"Ow..." She complained to herself. Well, hopefully, anything to her left would be a more interesting si-

...Oh, a wall.

Drat.

Well, it didn't hurt _that_ much...

Turning her head to the right this time, Yang winced. At least she was expecting it to hurt this time.

Over to her right, there was several beds that looked like they had been taken right out of a hospital. All of them were currently unoccupied, though a few of them looked like they had been rested in recently. Ruffled sheets and unmade beds and whatnot.

Apart from that, the room was also fairly boring. Man, being injured sucked. She was almost tempted to stand up, but she knew how much it hurt to move neck. Did she still have the wound from the harpoon in her stomach, and if she did, how bad would that hurt if she stood up?

She didn't want to check the wound, either. It was on her back, which meant checking it would involve moving it around...

Probably best to wait until someone got here so she could have them tell her how bad her injuries were. And have an excuse to make puns. Puns were the best medicine.

Sure another, after a moment, Yang heard a door open and Winter walked into her path of view.

"Hey." Yang said. "Is it just me, or..."

Yang trailed off.

"Crap." She eventually continued. "I had some sort of pun planned earlier involving Winter the season and Winter your name, but I can't recall it now."

"Trust me." Winter said. "I've heard them all."

"I'm creative." Yang claimed defensively.

"The one thing I am grateful for." Winter continued. "Was that I wasn't named Summer or Spring. I get enough 'It's hot in here' jokes as it is, and they don't even make sense."

Yang took a moment to consider. "It's got some good irony, but that's hardly a pun. People need to hammer it out a bit more, turn that iron into something as witty as a sword is sharp."

Winter gave a small smile, before moving on to business.

"How are your wounds?" She asked.

"Dunno." Yang replied. "Neck hurts when I turn my head, but I don't feel much more than that. Is there still a hole in my back?"

"That was the priority to be fixed." Winter explained. "It was patched up the first day you were out. Your ribs are the bigger concern, right now."

"...Right, I did break those." Yang noted. "It doesn't hurt to breath, at least."

"Your Aura must be holding them together." Winter noted. "I wouldn't recommend letting yourself run low anytime soon. Your healing might be accelerated, but it might take a bit longer for the wounds you had to really heal."

"How long was I out, anyway?" Yang asked.

"Four days." Winter replied. "Do you think you can move your limbs or stand up, or do you need some more time before you're able to do that?"

Yang considered for a moment, then moved her arm up and down. "Arm's fine. Legs don't seem to have any problems, either. Feeling a bit tired, though. Like I could keep a car rolling."

"...That was terrible." Winter replied. "I understand that making puns seems to be how you deal with being hospitalised, but-"

"Aw, don't be so cold." Yang interrupted, with a smile.

Winter was quiet for a moment, before she decided to change the topic of the conversation altogether.

"You should rest for a bit longer." Winter ordered. "You just regained consciousness, and even if you don't feel hurt, it would be wise to give your Aura more time to patch your body back together."

"How long do you think?" Yang asked.

"You said your neck hurts?" Winter asked. "When that doesn't hurt as much, we'll talk about it."

Yang nodded, and then immediately winced. "Ow. Ow. That was a mistake."

"Perhaps I should also diagnose your cognition." Winter noted. "Test to make sure your memory is fully functional."

"This sucks." Yang complained. "Can you at least set up my scroll so I can watch a movie while I wait?"

"If it'll keep you confined." Winter agreed. "Oh, and Yang?"

"Hm?"

"You did good, in that fight." Winter said. "When you're feeling better, I'm going to yell at you for fighting alone against a superior foe with unknown abilities, but you performed admirably, and did so in an attempt to prevent casualties. You should feel proud of yourself."

Yang took a moment to consider it, but deigned not to answer.

"If you wish, a trophy of sorts could be arranged." Winter said. "The mercenaries armour was obtained in the aftermath. If you want a memento of your good work, his weapon could be passed on to you."

"Is it normal for Hunters to pick up weapons that nearly killed them?" Yang asked.

"It varies between the Kingdoms." Winter explained. "There's a lot of different Hunters with lots of different perspectives. I'll give you time to think about it, while I find your scroll for you."

"Thanks." Yang replied.

Winter nodded. "I'll return shortl-"

There was a sudden crash, and the sound of metal tearing, from the direction of the door. Winter looked in that direction for a moment, and there was silence, before a small voice spoke.

"...I broke it..."

Curious, Yang ignored the pain in her neck to turn towards the source of the voice.

Two was standing at the door, looking at the automatic sliding metal. Usually, it was designed to open when it sensed someone approaching. However, the oddly two-shaped hole in the metal had left the door stuck half-open, leaving the perfect imprint of Two's upper body as a gap in the upper half while the lower half was left wide open.

"I..." Winter was at a loss for words, and after a moment, she seemed to just focus on looking at what had happened, rather than trying to talk about it.

"Hey, hey, Two, don't worry." A voice said from the other side of the door. Slipping under it, a young man who looked about Two's age slipped in, wearing all black. His face was rather...

Well, if this was some cartoon, he'd be the smug pretty boy who just invites a punch to the face.

"I broke it, Cent..." Two complained again. "I keep doing this..."

"It's fine." Cent promised. "Nobody's going to blame you for it. You were just overexcited. Nobody's going to blame a problem on a beautiful girl being happy."

Winter looked like she really, _really_ wanted to say something, but held her tongue.

"Cent..."

"No." Cent continued. "No complained, Two. Focus on happy things. This'll be easy to fix. I'll fix it myself. It'll buff right out."

"...Really?"

"Of course!" Cent said cheerily. "It's a well-known fact that polishing something enough will cause something to return to an undamaged form."

Two blinked, then giggled. "Cent, I don't think it works like that..."

"Of course it does." Cent replied. "I said it, so it has to be true."

Two giggled again.

"But don't worry about it." Cent continued. "You wanted to talk to Yang, didn't you?"

Two looked at him, then nodded. "Oh! Yeah! Right!"

Two turned towards Yang, and walked up to the side of the bed. "Yang, are you alright?"

Yang smiled. "Feelin' fine."

"Really?" Two asked. "Because if you're still hurt, Cent and I were talking earlier, he thinks he could figure out how to help with my Song to heal up wounds and make your Aura stronger-"

"That sounds dangerous." Winter interrupted. "Have you tested it before?"

Two frowned. "No... But it-"

"I would prefer if you didn't start on one of my students." Winter said. "There would be a controversy if the side-effects turned her into a zombie or something like that. If you want to try that trick, start with animals or something."

Two took a moment to consider that, then nodded. "Okay."

"How's everyone else?" Yang asked. "Piran? Blast? Civilians?"

"The kids are alright!" Two chirped. "Some of them reallyy want to see you, too! Tommy wanted to thank you for saving his brother and Carmine's been sad a lot but really looks up to you. They think you're the coolest! I'm kinda jealous, actually..."

"Don't be jealous." Cent interrupted. "They're just having some hero worship because they saw her fight the bad guy for a bit. I bet if they saw you fighting, they'd consider you cooler, as is right and proper."

"No, it's fine." Two replied. "There's already tons of people cooler than me. One was so much smarter, and Zero..."

Two trailed off for a bit.

"One?" Yang asked. "Zero?"

"My sisters." Two said. "They're the _coolest_! I just... Haven't seen them in a while."

"I'd like to meet them myself one day." Cent interrupted. "So I can prove once and for all that you're the coolest and most beautiful, my love."

Two blushed. "C-Cent! People are watching..."

"Get a room." Yang deadpanned.

"This is, technically, a room." Cent argued.

"An empty one, then." Winter interrupted. "Otherwise, I can arrange for you to be kicked off the airship, and you can walk."

"Fine, I'll behave." Cent complained.

Two turned away from him, slapping her blush away.

"Where was I?" Two wondered. "Cent flirting, sisters, coolest... Oh right, the kids! They'd love to see you, Yang. Though, uh, if you're still in a bed, maybe later."

"I'll see what I can do when I feel better." Yang replied.

"I hope you can walk around soon." Two continued. "Most of them are going to have to stay in the village we landed at once we set out."

"...We?"

"I hadn't mentioned it yet." Winter continued. "But Two found informatiom regarding children who are without a source of food because of the attack four days ago. She wanted to go find them and take them in, and I decided that we could assist her."

"Cool." Yang smiled. "When do we set off?"

"Tomorrow." Winter replied. "We were waiting for you to regain consciousness to set off."

"Thanks." Yang said, before her smile grew wider. "You _two,_ Two."

Two blinked, then giggled. "Hee.. Too, Two. Because my name is pronounced the same as the word Too and it's said two times. I get it."

"It was a good pun." Cent admitted. "Speaking of which, did you know that the word pun is derived from the word punishment, as in ancient times, puns were used as a form of torture against those who had committed crimes that did not warrant death?"

Two laughed louder at that.

"I doubt the accuracy of that statement." Winter noted. "But if it was true, I would understand why."

Two restrained her laughter, then turned back to Yang. "Okay, bye Yang! I'll see you later!"

She waved, then walked out the door, walking perfectly in the hole she had left when she had walked in.

"I should probably get to work fixing that..." Cent noted.

"Indeed." Winter replied. "I look forward to seeing how well this 'Polish fixes everything' plan of yours works out."

Cent gulped, looking around. "Well, you see... The thing is... Oh, I think I hear Two calling for me, gotta g-"

He bolted away at the last second, running from his responsibilities.

Winter looked at the door, and sighed. "That's going to come right out of my paycheck..."

 **In the remainder of the day before the airship leaves to go look for orphans, Yang has enough time to talk to some people. Who? Pick 2.**

 **[X] Piran.**

 **[X] Blast.**

 **[X] Two and the civilians.**

 **[X] Two specific civilians- That Nora girl, and her friend, Ren or whatever it was.**

 **[X] Forget talking to people, just sit down and watch a movie.**

 **[X] Yang should probably write how about what happened, so she can phrase it in a manner that's not likely to end with her dad refusing to ever let her out of his sight again.**

 **Does Yang want to take a trophy from the mercenary guy?**

 **[X] Yes- His weapon.**

 **[X] Yes- All of his armour.**

 **[X] No. That seems like a weird habit to get into.**


	12. Sun Goes Down

**[X] Yang should probably write how about what happened, so she can phrase it in a manner that's not likely to end with her dad refusing to ever let her out of his sight again.**

 **[X] Two specific civilians- That Nora girl, and her friend, Ren or whatever it was.**

 **[X] Yes- His weapon.**

Holding her scroll above her head and looking up to it, Yang took a moment to consider how to word her statements.

Saying 'Hey Ruby, wanna hear about how I nearly died?' would probably result in her dad never letting her leave the house ever again, and that would suck. But if she didn't mention the fight at all, her father would find out through Winter's report to Signal, and then she'd be eternally grounded in her room for not telling him about he nearly died.

Maybe she should just downplay it as much as possible. Maybe work in a lot of jokes, that'll make sure her dad didn't take it too seriously.

 _Dear Dad, Ruby, Uncle Qrow_

 _Sorry for taking so long to get in touch. There was a bit of an incident. Village burnt to the ground, haven't been able to find a place with good enough reception to make a proper call, you're probably only gonna get this a few days after I send it._

 _I swear the fire wasn't my fault, we didn't even get to town before it started burning. I haven't burnt down anything in years, and you guys don't even know about that._

Good, good, some humour was good. Needed some more puns a bit further in, though...

Well, she shouldn't go overboard, that would make people suspicious and more likely to ask Winter for more details.

 _Anyway, uh, yeah. Mercenaries attacked the village, we get there mid-attack. Saved some people. I got in a fight which I technically lost, but it's alright. Didn't get hurt too bad, Miss Schnee stepped in to be a hero before anything too bad happened, and she thinks I did well enough that I got a trophy! Hey Ruby, I've got a pair of harpoon gauntlets for you to take apart and examine when I get back._

She should probably make sure there wasn't any of her dried blood on any of those, that's a conversation that would probably have Yang trapped in some sort of protective sphere where nothing can touch her ever.

 _Not gonna lie, the fight was a bit of a handful, but I was able to handle it well enough. Real nailbiter for a moment there, but I managed to keep a grip on what I was doing. You gotta hand it to me, I'm pretty awesome. No lasting 'arm done, and even if it was a hard fight, I managed to save a bunch of people whereas mercenary guy got beaten by Winter, so I'm saying I won that hands-down._

 _Alright, now that dad's the only one reading this of his own free will, I'll be serious for a moment. I got beat up pretty bad in that fight. Was confined to a bed for a while so I could heal up properly. But I'm fine, I'm fine. All part of being a Huntress, right? I hit and got hit, I'm still around, people are alive because the merc didn't get free access to the civilians he was trying to shoot at. It's all fine._

 _Anyway, not much really happened beyond that. Nothing too important. Met some fun people. Having fun. Still a long time before I'll be home, though._

 _How's everything back home, anyway? How're the scythe lessons going, Rubes? Uncle Qrow, how much is Ruby exaggerating when she answers that question? Has dad had to intimidate anyone for trying to flirt with Ruby again? Give me the details, you guys are most of the entertainment I get these days._

 _Miss you guys._

 _-Yang_

Looking it over a few times, Yang nodded to herself, saved the message, and put the scroll down.

She could look over the message again later, to make sure she wasn't overlooking anything. It was always best to read through these things after a break. The last time she forgot to do that, Yang accidentally contradicted a story of hers and ended up not being able to sneak out to a party.

Which was especially annoying, since Uncle Qrow had told a bunch of stories about how her father would sneak out to parties when _he_ was a teenager. Hypocrite.

...Still, she was bored now. She should talk with someone.

And she was kinda curious about that Nora girl and her friend.

Rolling off the medical bed- Her neck may be feeling better, but Winter insisted she slept in there for a few days in case unforeseen complications pop up- Yang began wandering around looking for them.

The airship had landed in another village a few hours ago, and it was almost sunset now. Winter had hired out an apartment block- Seriously, how much money did she have?- And all the civilians saved were being sheltered there while people organised to get their lives back together.

Apparently, Winter was trying to call in a squad to exterminate any Grimm that lingered in the remains of the village so people could recover their belongings, and was helping Two locate an orphanage in the Kingdoms willing to take in the children who had lost their parents in the attack.

The two people that Yang was looking for weren't too far away from the airship. They were walking around the village, looking for a good place to watch the sunset. Well, the orange-haired girl was. The boy in green just seemed to be following.

"Walking up to them, Yang gave a shout as she approached. "Hey!"

The two turned to face her.

"Hi!" Chirped the girl. "You're Yang, right? I'm-"

"Nora, wasn't it?" Yang interrupted.

Nora looked at her.

"Ren." She whispered loudly. "Is she a mind rea-"

"I heard Two call you that ages ago." Yang answered.

"Oh, right." Nora said, before whispering at Ren again. "Totally a mind reader."

...Okay, she could have some fun with this.

"I thought I'd come and talk to you and Ren-"

"See, she knows your name!"

Ren shook his head. "You need to be quiet when you whisper, you know. Otherwise, people can hear you."

Yang continued. "-And I thought I'd thank you, for back in the village. You got a good hit on the mercenary leader guy, it made it easier to keep the two bodies distracted until Piran was able to do his thing."

"It was nothing." Nora dismissed. "I would've shot him anyway."

"I don't think we've really had proper introductions, though." Yang said. "That seemed wrong, so I thought we should talk. I'm Yang Xiao Long, Huntress in training."

"Nora Valkyrie." The girl introduced herself. "This is Lie Ren. Prefers going by his last name because he's weird. He doesn't talk much."

"I don't have to, you do enough talking for five people." Lie Ren noted.

Yang nodded. "Great to meet you. Though, I didn't see you in the village. What were you up to?"

"I was being an idiot." Ren answered. "Went off on my own to find the leader of the mercenaries. Nearly died for my troubles."

"Hey, that makes two of us." Yang noted. "I actually fought the guy."

"Why did you run off anyway, Ren?" Nora asked. "And don't dodge the question again! You can't just tell me to sit down and be safe then run off to fight someone stronger than you! Doing dumb reckless things is supposed to be my gimmick! Don't think I won't be bringing this to court, copyright infringement is a serious iss-"

"I already told you." Ren replied. "I was just... Another village we were in was being reduced to flaming ruins. I didn't want to run from the cause again."

Yang immediately felt like this wasn't a conversation she was supposed to be part of.

"So!" She interrupted. "I saw you had a nice weapon. I thought parts were supposed to be hard to come across out here."

Nora nodded. "Yeah. It's a nice hammer-grenade launcher, but it's not made of proper Hunter Weapon-grade materials, y'know? It takes ages to change form, and sometimes it jams up. Ren should've told me to make something simpler-"

"I did."

"-But on the upside, it's easy to fix. I just have to get Ren to fix it... Basically every time it shoots. And I don't have much ammo. And if I hit someone too hard it shatters and I have to start from scratch."

"We were planning on heading to Vale this year." Ren noted. "It'll take a few months to walk, but once we get there, we could probably get into Beacon based on merit, and then remake our weapons out of better materials."

Nora looked at Ren suspiciously for a moment.

"You're talking more than usual..." She muttered, thinking. "Ren! What did you make me for breakfast the day after-"

"Not pancakes, despite what you claim. I found a wolf and we rationed that until we made it to civilisation."

"So you're the real Ren after all!" Nora declared, satisfied. "Mystery solved!"

There was silence for a moment.

"Wait, no it's not!" She corrected. "Why are you so talkative recently?"

Ren shrugged. "I suppose losing a place I had called home for a few years for a second time's made me rethink my life. Aren't you sad about it?"

"Kinda." Nora admitted. "But home is where the heart is, they say, so as long as I've got you, any place can be home!"

Yang smiled. "Wow. _Smooth_."

Nora blinked. "...Smooth?"

"It's been a while since I heard a line that good." Yang replied. "Definitely one of the top ten of all time. You'd be a great couple."

The orange haired girl's eyes widened in understanding, and she started blushing. "Wha- No, no, I didn't mean that like that!"

Yang's smiled grew, as she suddenly sensed _prime_ teasing material.

"Ren's my friend!" Nora objected. "My best friend! That's all I mean! We've been together forever!"

"Together?" Yang asked. "How-"

"Not 'Together Together'." Nora immediately clarified. "Just together. Tell her, Ren!"

"If Nora's capable of romantic interest." Ren explained. "Then she hasn't demonstrated the evidence around me."

"Exactly!" Nora exclaimed. "No romance here! Nope! None whatsoever!"

"The lady doth protest too much." Yang continued.

Nora sputtered for a moment, and Ren decided to take charge of the conversation.

"So." He asked. "How is Vale, anyway? Since Nora and I were heading that way."

"It's pretty cool." Yang replied. "Not as many Grimm, criminals aren't as capable of burning down villages because they're feeling cheated, pretty nice."

"It does sound that way." Ren admitted.

The conversation trailed off for a moment, before Yang restarted it on a different topic.

"So." She asked. "Are you two coming with us when we go find more orphans with Two?"

"Yep!" Nora chirped, already having overcome her embarrassment. "We owe Two a lot. She saved out lives. And we can be useful! Ren's Semblance is great against Grimm!"

"That's cool." Yang noted. "We were heading off tomorrow, I think Winter said. I'll see you guys on the airship then, I guess."

"Bye!" Nora waved. "See you later! Oh, Ren, look, the sun's setting, isn't it nice here?"

"It isn't too different from the old village, Nora."

"But there's the lake over there! The reflection is nice and shiny!"

Looking back at the two again, Yang smiled.

"You know, watching the sunset is a tradition of romantic couples as old as-"

With a burst of speed that would leave Ruby feeling too slow, Nora appeared in front of Yang and put a finger on her lips.

"Shh!" She shushed. "No. None of that. For shame."

"Are you"

"For shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame."

And then she was back at Ren's side, looking at the sunset.

"...Strange girl." Yang wondered. "Nice, but strange."

Looking towards the setting sun herself, Yang took a moment to consider.

"It's still early." She decided. "I'll need to be up early tomorrow, but I probably have enough time to watch a movie first. I wonder if the new Rapid and Raging is any good..."

 **[X] It is**

 **[X] It isn't**

 **The quality of the movie aside, it is likely that Yang Xiao Long has underestimated how long the movie is, and she will be waking up later than she is supposed to. By the time she awakens, the airship will be on the way, the location of the orphans will be determined to be in a snowy mountain, and to avoid losing the airship in an airship and blizzard, Winter has made plans to:**

 **[X] Leave the younger people in the airship while searching the mountains with Two an Cent.**

 **[X] Divide everyone into groups under either her or Two and splitting up to look for orphans.**

 **[X] Have two grounds of three constantly searching while two people remain behind with the airship, rotating those two in to replace searchers every hour.**

 **[X] Risk running into a blizzard by flying over the mountains, locating the orphans, and then heading to that location after landing somewhere safe.**


	13. Snowbound

**[X] It isn't**

 **[X] Have two groups of three constantly searching while two people remain behind with the airship, rotating those two in to replace searchers every hour.**

"Are you sure you're not tired?" Blast asked, as he and Yand sat around the airship. "I could get you some coffee if you're still a bit asleep."

"I mean, if you're offering." Yang replied. "Not gonna say no."

"Of course you're not." Blast replied. "Do you like your coffee black, or do you have no taste?"

"None whatsoever." Yang replied.

Blast laughed a little, as he stood up to make the coffee.

"Why were you up so late anyway?" He asked, from across a room. Yang momentarily considered standing up to talk to him, but that meant getting up, and she was comfortable as it was.

"How was I meant to know that the new Rapid and Raging would be so long?" She asked. "Seriously, it was like three hours long and every minute of it was terrible."

"Objection!" Blast called. "Only way you could think that is if you watched it for the plot!"

"The first few had an alright plot." Yang replied. "I mean, it was simple and predictable, up until it got weird with the Grimm-Dragon hybrid being used to power the villain's motorcycle, but at least it was entertaining. Now..."

"The plot's always sucked." Blast replied. "The action scenes are the only things that keep people watching. Like, the trailers, yeah, nobody cares about a protest group falling to extremism and only being stopped by the protagonist racing good. What got people watching was those few seconds of the slow-motion sequence before Speedo used his semblance on the airbike."

"It could have at least used less ridiculous names." Yang Xiao Long said to Blast Yellowstone.

Blast shrugged. "Seemed normal enough to me."

"And I'm pretty sure the political commentary is getting too heavy-handed." Yang continued. "I mean, yeah, it's not a direct connection, but the terrorist leader being a Faunus kinda makes it obvious what they're critiquing."

"I mean, maybe." Blast replied. "But I just turn my brain off for those movies. I haven't seen it yet so I don't know how bad it is, but I can overlook a lo-"

"Evetta dies offscreen."

"Worst movie ever." Blast instantly declared. "Zero out of ten."

Yang laughed. "Too easy."

Blast sighed, as he walked back into the room with two cups of coffee, one mug in either hand. "Well, now I'm not gonna be watching that movie. That's depressing. Let's change topics."

"'Kay." Yang replied. "As fun as it would be to keep spoiling you on movies and see you explode, it'd probably blow up in my face somehow."

Blast chuckled. "Ah, I can't keep a Long face with you punning it up like that."

"At least someone appreciates it." Yang replied. "Winter's pretty cold when it comes to puns, and I don't know enough about Two or Cent to know if they'll be col two. Nor-a those two others."

"Such a shame." Blast replied. "Can you imagine Xiao much better the world would be if we could all unite over puns?"

Yang took a moment to think, before realising she was running out of puns on this direction. Time to change it.

"A shame the other's all went to the mountains instead of listening to our comedy." She said. "Snow joke, that."

"They're missing the peak of puns here." Blast countered. "But on the other hand, they could end up buried in avalaughs."

"You're terrible." Yang laughed.

Blast quickly gulped down his coffee, then looked around. "Well, I'm bored. I'm going to do some weapon maintenance. Are you doing anything?"

"Not really." Yang replied. "Maybe I'll have a look at those harpoon-gauntlets. Play around with that for a bit.

"Have fun with that, then." Blast said. "Shame we have to stay in peak condition, I could really go for a sparring match about now..."

"Maybe later." Yang replied, as Blast walked off.

Finishing off her own coffee, Yang took a moment to put the mug away, then went back to the room she had been assigned.

She was really glad that she was allowed to sleep in here again. Those hospital beds were alright, but they weren't as comfortable as real beds. And the roof is slightly more fancy too. Still unfamiliar and bland, but a white line across dull grey was still better than just dull grey.

Ignoring the roof, though, Yang went up to the shelf in the corner, and picked up the gauntlets there.

She hadn't noticed in the fight, that the two gauntlets were for different hands, but that was a nice coincidence. It meant she didn't need two bodies to use both hands. The mercenary leader guy must have enjoyed thematic cues like that, having the gauntlets on opposite hands to better play up the black-and-white mirror theme.

They weren't too fancy, as far as weapons went, but they were of a nice design. Simplistic. Quality of the metal was good too, and she knew how hard the harpoon was. Melee-wise, it ran into the usual issue with gauntlets in that it essentially made you punch better, but it was constructed in a fashion that it didn't constrict the movement of the fingers, which would allow-

- _the man to tighten his grip around the child's throat._

 _There was a snapping sound, and-_

Yang shook the memory out of her head, and threw the gauntlets back on the shelf in disgust.

...She'd messed up there, hadn't she? Assumed she could get the man talking if she just pushed him. Assumed he was alone. Assumed he had thrown away an opportunity for a sneak attack for gloating reasons.

She'd saved lives, but the people who hadn't made it were on her as well.

...Feeling sad about it wasn't going to bring them back, though. Wasn't going to make anything better. She could feel sad all she liked, as long as she was _better_ from here on out. Best way to make it up to the dead would be not to make the same mistake again.

Learn from her mistakes. Move forward. Be better. Don't make that mistake again.

She'd fiddle with the harpoon gauntlets later, though. For now, she couldn't stand the sight of them.

Walking off a bit, Yang wondered what else she could be doing right now.

...Maybe she could train up a bit. Sparring would drain her Aura too much, but a few strength exercises wouldn't make an impact.

Satisfied with her plan, Yang went off to throw some weights around for a bit.

* * *

By the end of the hour, Yang was feeling rather good about herself. Hadn't broken her record in regards to heaviest weight lifted, but it was still nice to remember she could throw around things several times her weight.

And then Winter returned to the airship, and Yang got ready to get moving.

She didn't really need much stuff to be ready for going into the mountains. Aura would protect you from the worst of the cold, and Yang herself was able to keep warm easier than most. But it still felt uncomfortable when it got cold, and all it took was a woolly jumper and some more thick clothes to stop that being a problem. Conveniently enough, the airship had everything she needed.

Winter really was prepared for everything. There was some light cloaks in case of a desert, some equipment to help with thick jungles and forests, the works.

Pulling on a beanie and confirming that her hair still looked amazing while she wore it, Yang nodded, and headed towards the exit of the airship. As she did so, she passed by Piran and Ren, who were wearing significantly more layers then Yang was.

"How'd it go?" Yang asked.

"Didn't find anything." Ren replied. "There was some Beowulf's lurking around, but not much of a group. Not enough to be a real threat to anyone."

"Winter was thinking of doing some mountain climbing for the next area." Piran replied. "I get the feeling that you and Blast are going to enjoy a race up a vertical surface."

"Could be fun." Yang replied. "Anyway, Two's group should be back in the next hour, so I guess that means I'm going to spend two hours out in the snow, isn't it?"

"That's how it works." Piran said. "Hey, Ren, when Nora gets back, I'll sub in for her. Two and Cent seem like they're the kind to keep going, but Nora'd probably be happier sitting around with you than me."

"Sure." Ren replied.

"Well, see ya later." Yang said, as she left. The boys waved at her, and as Yang left the airship, she saw Winter and Blast both waiting for her.

While Winter had put on some warmer clothes, her outfit wasn't that different from her usual. Looks like it wasn't a rumour that Schnee's were better with the cold after all.

Blast, meanwhile, had just put more belts on under his open jacket and called it a day.

"You're going to be freezing." Yang noted.

"Nah." Blast replied. "Someone as hot as me? The snow'll melt right off me."

Yang smiled, and Winter gave no reaction.

"Let's go." Winter said. "The closest area to climb isn't far from here. While I can't risk using a Nevermore of flying summon in an area with a risk of blizzards to fly up, we can still climb fast."

And with that ,she set off, with surprising speed. A moment later, Blast and Yang followed.

The snow was starting to pile high, but fortunately, Aura provided some options in regards to getting through snow like that. There was Winter's method, of running fast enough and using your Aura to bounce off the top of the snow piles, and there was Yang's method, of melting the snow slightly so that you could move your legs through it easier.

And then there was the Blast method of just running so fast any effect of a slowdown is minimised. It wasn't the best method, which was why he was the last to arrive at the cliff face, but it did technically work.

"Race you to the top." Blast said, as he dashed out of the snow and onto the cliff face. By the time Yang followed, he had already made it up a decent distance. Not even remotely close to the top, but high enough that a fall would hurt.

Noticing Winter standing nearby with a glyph under her feet, Yang smiled, and walked up next to Winter. When more glyphs started forming, building a stairway up as Winter ascended, it was easy enough for Yang to leap from one to the next. Only until she had overtaken Blast and his unfair head start, of course. Naturally, Yang jumped onto the cliff proper and did it the fun way once she had made the contest fair by being double the height of Blast.

"Cheat!" He called up, from way down below you.

"What was that?" Yang asked. "I can't hear you from up here. You should hurry up!"

Whatever Blast said in response to that was muffled by the wind, but the sound of crunching stone seemed to hint that Blast was speeding up a bit.

Smiling, Yang stretched her leg up, moving it onto a stable footing and using it to leverage herself upwards. Building up momentum to propel her upwards, Yang pushed away from the holes her hands were in, and took a leap up the cliff.

Above them, Winter stopped her ascent, and looked down at them for a moment. For a moment, Yang swore she heard Winter sigh.

"Don't tire yourselves out." The Schnee called down. "There's going to be a long walk ahead of us once we get up here, and there will be a return trip."

"Yes, boss!" Blast called out from below Yang. Still further down, but getting closer.

Stretching her arm and gripping a chunk of rock above her, Yang, kicked up with her right lef to get up to it, and when she didn't see another good grip for her left hand after she jumped, she punched through the rock just enough to create an arm-sized hole for her to grip.

...Huh. If she did that all the way up, it'd probably be faster.

Smiling, Yang continued to climb with greater speed.

 **Upon finishing the climb, Yang, Winter and Blast have two hours to search. Naturally, that is just enough time for something interesting to happen.**

 **[X] After searching for a while, Yang spots a figure silhouetted in the snow in the distance.**

 **[X] The weather starts getting bad, and a blizzard starts just as Winter suggests they return to the airship. The gang gets lost.**

 **[X] There is a mighty roar that echoes through the mountains, spooking birds away and shaking the earth.**


	14. Shoot the Water

**[X] After searching for a while,Yang spots a figure silhouetted in the snow in the distance.**

Walking up a path leading up the mountain, Yang looked around.

"Is it just me, or is the snow getting heavier?" She asked. "It's getting a bit hard to see into the distance."

"Not much." Winter replied. "It's still within a safe amount. If it gets much heavier, we may have to return to the airship, but we can still search in this."

"Are you sure?" Blast asked. "It's rather cold out here."

"Maybe you should've worn more than a few new belts." Yang pointed out.

"I understand those words individually." Blast said. "But in that order, they mean nothing to me."

"I'll use small words then." Yang teased. "More belt not good for cold."

"More belt... Not good?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "You are insufferable."

"You know you love it." Blast replied with a smirk.

"I mean, yeah, but Winter looks like she's about to stab you in the throat."

Blast considered it for a moment. "You have a good point."

"So does her sword."

Blast chuckled. "It's such a shame we've already driven the "Winter's rather cold" puns into the ground, the way she's refusing to look at us is the _perfect_ opportunity for a Cold Shoulder pun."

"You're saying you ruined your chance, Blast?" Yang asked. "In other words, you blew it?"

Winter stopped walking.

"...Boss?"

"These mountains are dangerous." She said. "There is a risk of Grimm attacks everywhere, and the snow makes it difficult enough to determine what is happening. It would be for the best if we all focused on monitoring our surroundings so we don't walk into an ambush."

"Is this your way of telling us to shut up?" Blast asked.

"Talking to each other would distract each other and create a greater risk." Winter replied. "So for the interest of the mission, stop talking."

"Yes, boss." Blast replied, smirking a bit. "Sorry, Yang. Orders are orders, so we'll have to save the puns for when we get back to the ship."

"Indeed." Yang replied. "I'll save them all up for them, we can have a Punfest tonight."

Winter ignored them and walked on.

Despite having her fun, Yang was quiet after Winter's orders, actually paying attention to things around her and not talking.

...And she thought the ship was boring, there was so much _white_ here that it was look looking at that dull roof.

The mountainous path opened up to a snow-covered forest, wide enough and with enough trees that seeing through them was difficult.

"Search the forest." Winter replied. "We'll split up to cover it better, but call out every few minutes to confirm that you're within earshot. If you can't hear anyone respond, regroup immediately. Understood?"

Yang and Blast didn't respond.

"...You can talk to answer me."

"Yes, ma'am." Yang replied, smirking.

"She really is related to that old drunk..." Winter muttered under her breath, before speaking up. "Yang, search towards the left. Blast, take the right. We'll head forwards to wards the end of the forest. There should be another cliff to climb over there."

Yang nodded, and waved a hand. "I'll shout in a minute or so."

And with that, the group split up.

Yang walked through the trees for a few minutes, having a look at all of them.

These were some old trees, covered in snow, and with the clouds partially blocking the sun, the area seemed rather ominous to walk though. If it was much darker, like it would be at night, this place could have the looks of a horror movie to it. Probably one of those dumb B-movies, though. Like the one about a serial killer who ate Grimm-flesh and became a cannibal monster thing.

Walking past some trees, Yang gave a quick shout, and got a reply from Winter and, more distantly, Blast.

Okay, she was till fairly close. Time to wander a bit more.

Heading away from the group some more, Yang walked in a direction that didn't take her closer to the cliffs for a while, just to cover more ground. After a while of that, she resumed her path. Should probably wait until she knew if she was still in earshot before she wandered much more.

Looking around, Yang saw something flit through the trees out of the corner of her eyes. Pausing her search, Yang turned towards it, circling the tree blocking her view.

In the distance, walking through the trees, was some form of figure. The snow was falling heavily around them, making it difficult to see who they were, and they were far enough away that Yang had to move every second or so to get a clear line of sight on them. But it was a person.

"Hey!" Yang called, trying to get their attention. When they didn't react, she turned in the direction of Winter and Blast.

"Person over here!" Yang called out. "Come over here, I'll investigate!"

"If they're hostile, run this way!" Winter called in the distance, before shouting something towards Blast. Satisfied, Yang walked towards the figure in the distance.

Keeping a distant pace through the trees, Yang nevertheless found herself falling behind. Every time the person disappeared behind a tree, they seemed to move ahead in their path a larger distance than Yang would have expected when they appeared again.

Maybe it was just a trick of the eyes. It was fairly difficult to see them as it was, so Yang might have misjudged the distance.

Picking up the pace again, Yang called out once more. "Hey!"

The person looked back at her, and stopped moving.

Oh good, they had heard her.

Rushing forward a bit more, Yang darted through the trees, slowing down a bit as she approached the figure. As she drew closer, she took note of what she could about their appearance.

They seemed rather slender, and didn't seem to be wearing many layers. They had some form of hood on, but unless they were really skinny for their height, they didn't appear to have much to wear regarding the cold at all.

"Are you from around here?" Yang asked. "Me and my group are looking for someone who does. A little girl, and maybe some other children?"

The person didn't respond, but didn't move either, as Yang drew closer.

"...Hello?" Yang asked, as she stepped closer. "Can you hear me? Can you understand me?"

There was a small clearing in the trees as Yang approached, and Yang was close enough to notice that the snow seemed to be parting around the person. Said person- Who, Yang could tell from this close, was definitely a woman- Seemed to have a Semblance to help in that regard. Though, it did make it hard to see much about them in detail...

"Is there something wrong?" Yang asked, not drawing any closer. She was still two or three metres from the person, and the fact that they weren't reacting was suspicious. If it wasn't for the fact that they weren't holding a weapon, Yang would think she had stumbled into a trap.

The person obscured in the snow seemed to twist their head to look at Yang.

"Not for me." Said a monotone feminine voice. Before Yang could react, the figure vanished, and a blue trail of light twisted around her.

"What the-" Yang started, but before she could react, the snow underneath her feet parted, and she fell into a small hole. Then, it crawled back over the top of her, burying her completely.

"Freeze." A voice whispered in her ears. "Die for her."

Closing her eyes, Yang focused her Aura as she felt a sudden surge of anger.

This person was just trying to kill her? For no reason? What gives her the right?

Focusing that anger and her Aura, Yang moved her arms together, and let her Aura blaze up. Flames appeared around her, and the snow around her for quiet a distance melted and evaporated in an instant.

More snow started hurtling towards her, but burning as she was, Yang could simply allow it to melt off of her. Turning around for the person responsible, Yang fired Ember Celica towards the bluish light that they had become.

The light moved out of the way, and started circling in the air above Yang, out of reach. The snow around her stopped falling, hovering in the air for a moment, before forming together to make hail and firing off into Yang. She burned, melting the ice as it came at her, but not fast enough to remove all of it. As small and weak as it was, Yang felt her Aura be pelted by dozens of icy projectiles, each eating away at her Aura bit by bit. Not much, yes, but it also hurt like a bitch.

Turning from the floating light, Yang ran back towards Winter. Whoever this was, they were hostile, and Yang did have orders to regroup if she encountered a hostile.

As she ran, another piece of hail hit Yang in the back of the neck, and a second before it melted away, it expanded outwards with explosive force, knocking Yang to the ground. The snow beneath her had melted, but before she could stand, more and more of the hail began hitting her and expanding. Even as _that_ melted away, there was more and more to replace it, covering Yang and trying to entrap her.

Not willing to stick around in a confined area while her flames burnt up the oxygen, Yang fired Ember Celica from her position on the ground, shattering the glass towards her legs and letting Yang slip out of the trap. As she looked up, Yang realised that the bluish light was hovering near a tree. Aiming her fist at it, Yang fired slightly below the light, and when her projectile hit the tree, it explodedd.

The bluish light hit the ground, and morphed into a humanoid shape. It looked over at Yang, and the girl got a good look at her attacker.

That wasn't a hood, they were wearing. It was attached to their body, an extension of their skin, in a way that almost, but not quiet, hid their long, pointed ears. The woman looked at Yang with a face that vaguely resembled a fish, and snarled at her.

"What the hell?" Yang asked, jumping back. That didn't look like a Faunus. Faunus usually had only one animal feature and were otherwise humanoid. This thing looked more like a monster, but it's majority blue body didn't resemble that of a Grimm at all.

The thing looked at Yang, and the snow around it started hovering, before melting into water. That water flew at Yang like a fire hose, and even with her flames heating it up and evaporating it, it struck at her with enough force to send her backwards. More hailed rained at her, expanding differently now, hitting her like a pebble and then expanding like a knife into her Aura, and the water did it's best to extinguish the flames of Yang's Aura.

Yang rolled to the side, through the snow, and then quickly jumped up before the snow could start consolidating into ice to trap her. Heading up into a tree, Yang fired at the branches to shake as much of the snow off of it as possible, and did her best to avoid the ground.

The area around her was rather devoid of snow now, actually. Most of it had been turned into a weapon to try and attack her with. Gritting her teeth, Yang fired at the woman, but again, she turned into a stream of light.

From the angle she was at, Yang noticed that it seemed rather snakelike, in it's form and movement. And with a clear comparison, she noted that it seemed to flow like water. Except glowing, and with sparks of blue light flying off from the head.

Yang moved to dodge when another jet of water came soaring at her, but a glyph appeared in the air between the water and Yang, and the water bounced off the defensive shield.

"Ma'am." Yang said, looking down at Winter. "Excellent timing."

Winter didn't respond, looking at the water-light-snake-thing dancing through the air.

"An Undine?" She asked. "Here? I thought they all lived in the oceans. What is one doing here?"

"You know what I am?" The snake-thing asked in it's monotone voice. "No matter. Die for her."

Spikes made of ice flew at Winter, who shattered them with ease as they flew at her.

"Her?" Winter asked. "So there's someone here that you're with. Perhaps the reason you're not in an ocean right now?"

The Undine didn't reply, and Winter pointed a sword at it.

"Whatever the reason, I don't appreciate you attacking me or my student." She said. "If you surrender now, perhaps your containment will be pleasant. Otherwise, this will be quiet painful for you."

With the ultimatum delivered, Yang stared at the Undine as it hovered about, waiting for the moment it would strike out against Winter.

Preparing for a fight, Yang planned out her next action.

 **[X] Stay in the tree and take potshots, allow Winter to do the fighting.**

 **[X] Try and grapple with the water-snake-thingy. If she can get a hold of it, she might be able to hold it still for Winter to contain.**

 **[X] 'Her.' Who is 'Her?' The Undine might not be alone. Slip away from the fight and look around for who 'Her' might be.**


	15. Snowball in Hell

**[X] 'Her.' Who is 'Her?' The Undine might not be alone. Slip away from the fight and look around for who 'Her' might be.**

"You're hesitating." Winter said to the Undine, as Yang watched.

The yellow-haired girl only paid the slightest bit of intention, as she thought.

The Undine kept telling people to 'Die for her.' So the Undine wasn't alone, and whoever was with it, she was important enough that the Undine's reason for trying to kill Yang and Winter was related to her.

"You're weakening, aren't you?" Winter continued. "You tried too hard to kill Yang, and didn't manage it. You're trying to avoid using your magic for a moment so you can recuperate. Like a sprinter slowing down while they catch their breath."

The Undine didn't reply, and Yang took that into account. The Undine wasn't at it's peak. Winter alone should be able to handle it, Yang wouldn't be needed to shoot or help. Which meant that if she slipped away and looked around for whoever the Undine's friend was...

"Your a burst fight." Winter continued. "You can do impressive things, but not for long. You have a few minutes of controlling the fight, especially in a place like this, but then you need to recover, and you're weak enough that someone who can maintain the pressure could turn the tables, and you need to back off to prepare yourself."

With the Undine distracted by Winter, Yang started making her way down the tree, slowly and quietly. If they started fighting, they'd be distracted enough for her to just jump down and run, but until then-

"The question is, if I know all that, why haven't I attacked yet?" Winter asked.

In response, the snow surrounding the partially melted battlefield began to glow, and several summons emerged from it. Not weak ones, either. One of the human-looking ones took a few steps forward before bursting into flames. To it's left, a legless dragon-like thing flapped it's wings and opened it's mouth, a ball of fire emerging from it's mouth, and to it's right, multiple King Taijitu rose up, the two-headed snake Grimm slithering around.

All at once, they attacked. The wyvern thing flew into the air, setting to fire the trees around the Undine except for the one Yang was in, and the snake-Grimm circled around and struck at the weakening, burning trees to knock them down, toppling them towards the Undine and opening the skyline for the wyvern to attack from above.

The Undine's magic lashed out, turning snow to icy explosions around the battlefield, forcing Winter to defend and entrapping the King Taijitu.

Well, that seemed like a big enough diversion. Yang leaped from the tree branch, rolling in the snow to bleed off the momentum of her fall, and starting running towards the direction the Undine had originally come from, looping around the fight in the process.

Winter dismissed her summons as the Undine trapped them, and created more and more ghostly figures from her position. The Undine's ice speared outwards, stabbing through most of the summons, before it tried to flee.

One of Winter's glyphs appeared, cutting it off from it's escape in the direction Yang was heading towards.

"Leaving so soon?" Winter asked. "Looking for a chance to catch your breath? Well, I'm afraid I can't allow you that."

A second glyph appeared, on the other side of the Undine, and the two runes started drawing closer together. Ice suddenly emerged out of nowhere next to the Undine, holding the glyphs apart while the Undine dashed out of it and into the snow, hiding it from view.

Winter's burning summon flared up, melting the snow around it, and slowly uncovered more and more of the ground, denying the Undine the ability to recuperate as much as it could.

The air above Winter suddenly stilled, and hardened into hail. Before it could be flung at Winter, however, a bullet rang out.

Yang looked back for a moment from her running position, and saw Blast aiming a revolver at the icy situation. The bullet flew out at the hail, and hit one piece, which redirected the bullet and sent the hail flying. Both the piece of hail and bullet hit more hail, which changed directions and hit even more hail. In only a second, all the hail had been hit and was sent flying to the ground, whilst the bullet struck into the snow, causing a cry of pain from the Undine. The water-ish spirit thing rose out of the snow, which then shot up to surround it, and solidified into ice.

"I love my Semblance." Blast said. "It's _amazing_."

Winter didn't respond, pointing her sword at the slowly expanding block of ice. All of her summons converged on it, and the flaming man and Wyvern both shot flame at it, melting the ice slightly faster than it could expand.

Yeah, that was handled. Yang really needed to look into who the 'Her' person is.

Setting off faster now, even as the ice block melted completely and revealed an absence of crazy murderess glowing water snake, followed by jets of water shooting out at Winter and Blast from the opposite direction.

The Undine had forgotten about her completely. Good.

Running through the forest, ignoring the roars of the dragon-ghost-thing and the gunshots behind her, Yang started looking for some sort of sign of another presence. Footsteps in the snow, pathways where the trees weren't growing, maybe even-

Yang paused in her run, as she saw something ahead. Curious, she drew closer for a moment, looking at what seemed to be a fairly obvious hint.

A tree stump, without an attached tree. Several, in fact. Though it was hard to see, it looked like someone had cut down a bunch of trees in the area.

Which meant people cam here occasionally, at the bare minimum. And there was probably a living area nearby, since people wouldn't want to carry firewood to far away. Though, if people were trying to remain hidden, it probably wasn't too close...

Yang heard a growl, and looked around. Nearby, hidden near the trees, there was a patch of black contrasting against the white snow.

A Beowulf?

It sniffed around, and Yang briefly wondered back to a discussion she had sat through in class in Signal last year. There was a talk on theory regarding Grimm, and it was wondered how exactly Grimm sensed negative emotions. It was still unproven if they were able to just feel it, or if they detected it through scent and sight or something like that.

Well, if they did detect negative emotion through smell, then the Beowulf was hunting around for something. If not, it was still smelling something interesting. Either way, it could potentially lead to some interesting clues.

Yang hid behind a tree and looked after the Beowulf for a moment, watching it smell around. It looked towards the direction of the cliff face, sniffed around, and moved on an angle that was both drawing closer to the cliffs and heading towards the area where all the trees where cut.

Well, that was a good enough direction to look into. Dashing towards it, Yang crushed the Beowulf's skull with her hand, firing Ember Celica as she pushed it to the ground and fired downwards. It died, and it's body faded.

Heading off in the direction it was sniffing around in, Yang ran.

It only took a few moments to start getting suspicious. The snow in the area was piling up more and more as it approached the cliff, and there was something that could manipulate snow who could be hiding something. Perhaps...

Walking towards the snow, Yang allowed herself to burn up more, as she walked towards the centre of it, where the snow was piled the highest.

It took a while, constantly flaring her aura up more to keep up with the increased amount of snow as she went in, and eventually she had to punch through ice even as she melted it. Eventually, however, with the snow piled up four times her size either side of her, Yang reached the stone cliff face.

Nothing.

...Well, there was still a lot of snow. Looking around, Yang flared her Aura even more, and quickly ran up the cliff a bit to evaporate the snow at the top first, so she didn't accidentally bury herself. Clinging to the cliff on level with the highest pile of snow, Yang looked around, looking for a sign of something hidden in it.

To her left, she saw a wooden plank defrost.

Bingo.

Kicking off the cliff in the direction of the wood, Yang landed on top of it, and kept melting the snow around her. Even as her boots got wet from the water hitting them before it evaporated, Yang could see more and more of a roof of a smallish cabin emerging.

Walking around for a bit, Yang determined the size, then jumped down and started melting a path around the cabin, looking for the door.

It only took a moment to find it, and when she did, Yang reached to open the door.

Locked.

...Of course it was.

Yang took a moment to think. That Undine thing was the only one who could have stacked that snow up and move through it with enough ease to go back and forth, but it was locked, and it didn't look like a snake made of water could carry a key. So, how would it get in and out? And if it had a friend, how would she get in and out, assuming it wasn't another Undine?

Yang thought it over for a moment, then made her first guess.

Her knuckle rapped against the door three times, and after exactly three seconds, something started moving around inside. Yang heard a latch open, and then a moment later, the door swung inwards.

The girl who was on the other side was small. Not just in height, but she was rather thin as well. Her skin was pale, there were bags under her eyes, and she seemed to have difficulty focusing on Yang. For a moment, it didn't seem like the girl was really looking at Yang at all.

"Undi..." The girl began, before her eyes focused more, and then widened in fear. The door slammed shut before Yang could stop it.

"Hey!" Yang objected, trying and failing to pry it open again. It may be made of wood, but apparently it was... Super wood, or something. "Open up!"

The girl didn't look healthy. She looked sick, and her skin was clinging to her bones, which was never a good sign. And Yang had heard what she had almost said.

'Undi.' As in, 'Undine.' Whoever this girl was, she was related to the watery snake-

Yang heard a scream, which echoed through the forest and mountains. Not one of fear, or pain. It sounded more like...

Rage. Anger. _Hate_.

The snow around yang shuddered, then crushed in towards her. She flared her Aura to melt as much of it as she could, but the _amount_ of snow ws still enough that Yang was pushed to the side, as it wretched her away from the door.

As the snow did melt, though, Yang saw the humanoid fish-faced form of the Undine standing above her, a look of sheer loathing marring her expression as she looked down at Yang.

"Die." She said, in a voice that was unchanging, even now. Above her, Yang hear a rumbling sound, and looked up to see rocks start falling from the top of the cliff.

Ice and snow and water covered the cabin once more, in many more layers now. Distinct ones, too, with a layer of water between every layer of snow and ice. Designed to slow down momentum to make the next slower. Almost as if-

"You are a threat." The Undine said. "She is in danger while you are alive. Die."

"Is that what this is about?" Yang asked. "You're just killing me because I'm near someone who you're trying to protect? The one who I wouldn't have thought to look for in the snow if you didn't attack?"

"No." Undine replied, looking at Yang. "You are meat. She starves. Your death solves two problems."

Yang's eyes widened in shock. "You- I'm not food, you monster. You're going to feed human flesh to a little girl? How do you think someone will react to that!"

"She does not need to know." The Undine said. "She did not ask last time."

Yang felt sick as the mental images came to her automatically.

"That's kinda messed up." A voice said from behind the Undine, and Yang looked past it to see-

"Cent?" She asked.

The man in black smiled. "Yep! Blast gave Two a call, and she sent me- Or rather, _cent_ me- To go investigate what all the fighting was about. Feeling a little tired, had to run a long way, but that scream gave away your position and trees are great for blocking falls. That's why they have leaves, you know? Trees grew leaves because humans kept falling on them and breaking the bark, so they evolved to grow leaves to protect themselves."

The Undine looked at him for a moment, then screamed again.

Above the two, the earth shook, and Yang looked up just in time to see the avalanche launching down the cliff.

 **[X] Run for the cabin. The Undine had put protective layers around it, she wouldn't risk tearing that apart just to kill Yang. Stay near it.**

 **[X] Run away, avoid the avalanche, come back when it stops. Don't take any unnecessary risks.**

 **[X] Attack the Undine. It won't be expecting it, and you could probably dodge most of the rocks, maybe climb up them as they fell even.**


	16. Cat's in the Cradle

**[X] Run for the cabin. The Undine had put protective layers around it, she wouldn't risk tearing that apart just to kill Yang. Stay near it.**

The snow and stone slid down the side of the mountainous cliff, and Yang watched it come down for a moment, before her instincts overrode her shock.

Her mind blocked out the Undine, for the moment. The Undine wasn't a threat. Winter had pointed out that it could only do so much before it became tired, and between the avalanche and the defensive barrier, there was no way it had enough energy left to attack Yang or Cent mid-avalanche. Which just became an issue of not being buried alive.

Running away from the avalanche would be hard. She didn't know how far the avalanche would go, and she'd be leaving the Undine behind, giving it time to catch it's breath and try again. Meanwhile, the cabin was _right there_.

Setting off into a sprint, Yang flared her Aura to make it easier to burst through the ice and snow, and lunged forward as she reached the water. Her momentum bled out through the first layer of water, but not enough to stop her shattering the ice layer. The second water layer did slow her more, and the snow layer had her putting more effort in to move through. Yang heard rumbling around her as the avalanche started landing all around the cabin.

Holding her breath through the next layer of water, Yang extended Ember Celica and fired into the next lot of ice, pre-shattering it, and then whipping her arms around and firing behind her to force herself through the water for a moment. Firing several times to get through the water layer, the ice, and another water layer, Yang allowed her Aura to melt the ice slightly and breath for a moment, before the finally reached the cabin door.

Behind her, Yang could feel the layers of different states of water suddenly crushing inwards, drawing closer as she heard the avalanche continue rumbling. The increased pressure sealed up the layers around her, trapping Yang against the cabin and knocking the breath out of her lungs with the sudden tightness. The snow around her melted quickly, but water and ice still closed in around her, constantly constricting in a way that kept the pressure up constantly.

Struggling to move her arm, Yang twisted it just enough to point Ember Celica towards the door, and fired.

The door burst open inwards, flying off the hinges, and the pressure around Yang forced her inside. She hit the ground and was almost buried by the snow and water coming in after her, before she rolled out of the way and got to her feet.

She was in the cabin again. Good. But...

Looking towards the door, Yang saw how much was blocking the door.

...It'd probably take a while to get out of there, when the avalanche was over. And if the Undine regained their full ability to control it's magic while she was halfway through it, completely surrounded by the element it casually controlled...

That was dangerous. A risk even Yang wasn't entirely willing to take for a fight. But, on the other hand, Cent was alone outside with the Undine, and if he didn't managed to hold his own...

...Well, Winter and Blast should be on their way as well, if the Undine ran away from them. They'd help him out. In the meantime, Yang had another priority to focus on.

Keeping an eye on the snow pile bursting from the door, in case the Undine came out of it to attack her inside the cabin, Yang looked around.

The cabin wasn't too big, and the entrance room looked like it covered most living requirements. There were door to other rooms, but there was a shelve covered in books, a fireplace that was currently also filled with snow, a wardrobe against the wall, and a small bed on the floor.

As her eyes scanned past the wardrobe, Yang noticed that the door was shaking somewhat. As if someone was trying to hold it still with shaking hands.

That was where the girl was hiding, then?

Walking towards the door slowly, careful not to make too much noise but also not trying to seem like she was trying to be undetected, Yang spoke in a soft voice. "Hey? Hey, are you in there?"

There was stuttered breathing from within the wardrobe, but no reply.

"It's okay." Yang said, trying to sound reassuring. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"G-Go away!" The girl's voice sobbed, and the doors slammed inwards more, as if the girl was trying to move away from the doors of the wardrobe.

Yang stopped walking closer, hoping not to spook the girl. "I just want to talk." She said.

"Don't..." The girl whimpered, but was unable to finish the thought.

Yang tried stepping away from the wardrobe. "I'm backing off, okay? Not coming closer. I just want to talk. Can we talk?"

There wasn't a reply, and Yang let the silence hang for a moment, trying to figure out how to communicate with the girl.

"My name is Yang." She tried. "I'm from Vale. I'm helping a friend of mine who just wants to help people like you. We don't want to hurt you."

Still no reply.

"I need you to talk with me." Yang tried. "Your friend, Undine, she's fighting my friends outside. We don't need to fight. Just... Please, talk to me, we can make them stop fighting. I don't want anyone to get hurt. Does that sound good to you?"

Once again, there was no reply. Yang felt a moment of frustration, but then immediately ignored it. The girl in there...

She had nobody but that Undine with her. Who knows what had happened to her parents. She looked sick and starved when Yang got a look at her earlier. Of course she didn't trust Yang enough to try talking.

Yang heard the rumbling of the avalanche finally stop as this thought crossed her mind, and as it did, Yang looked over towards the door. The snow there shuddered for a moment, before a water-snake-thing burst through it and formed back into a humanoid form.

The Undine was back.

It looked at Yang with loathing for a moment, but was hunched over, exhausted. It extended an unsteady hand, and the snow around it formed into ice and prepared to strike out at Yang.

Looking at it, Yang took a moment to consider how to get out of this situation without further conflict.

Well, there was an obvious answer.

Just before the icicles could fly at her, Yang raised her arms into the air.

"I surrender."

The Undine stopped, looking at her for a moment, with a slight glare.

"Trick." It said.

"No trick." Yang replied. "I don't want to fight. I'm not a threat to you."

"Liar."

"Not lying." Yang contradicted. "You tried to kill me first, I was just defending myself."

Yang took note on how the Undine paused, right where it would have brought up the point of Yang being meat, and looked over at the wardrobe for a moment. Trying to keep the girl from realising what she had been eating, was it?

"We're not here to hurt her." Yang continued. "The opposite, if anything. Two came to the mountains because she heard there was people here who were in a bad way or something. If you just tried talking, we could have tried to make things bette-"

"Liar." The Undine repeated. "How would you know?"

"I don't know how Two found out." Yang replied, keeping her voice calm to avoid frightening the girl. "I was out at the time. There was a village that got attacked, and people died, and Two wanted to go find any kids who lost parents-"

The Undine lunged at Yang, and the teenager was shocked enough that she didn't react in time. Her Aura would let her defend against an attack, but if she had seen an attack coming, she could have defended herself first.

But it wasn't an attack. The Undine placed a hand on Yang's mouth, generating water from nowhere and freezing it over Yang's lips to stop her talking. She was confused, for a moment, before she realised her mistake.

From the wardrobe, a small voice spoke.

"...Dad?" The girl said to herself, and Yang's heart plummeted. "You said you'd be back soon, dad. You said..."

The Undine looked at Yang with an expression of sheer hatred, and reached a hand to Yang's throat for a moment, but simply froze her to the wall from her throat. Leaving her there, the Undine went to the wardrobe, opened it up, and tried to hug the girl.

"Do not cry." The Undine said. "Everything is fine."

"B-But..." The girl whimpered. "He's been gone so long. He-He was only here for a little bit and he said he'd be back soon and he'd make everything better and he-"

"She is wrong." The Undine said. "Your father must be alive.

"But..." The girl sniffed. "I-It's like m-mother all over a-again. S-She goes away and n-never comes back and d-dad tells m-me she's just lost b-but he looks sad whenever I ask about h-her and she's _not coming back_ and he d-doesn't want to tell me but _I know_ and-"

"He will be back." The Undine said again, it's monotone voice beginning to betray a sort of desperation.

 _"You don't even care!"_ The girl shrieked, pushing her away. "You p-pretend and you smile but it's all because of the Pact because if I die you die, you _don't care about me_ , you just didn't want to die then and don't want to die now and-"

The Undine shook her head quickly, but didn't seem to know what to say.

"D-Dad's always leaving and he's barely talking to me while he's here, he just looks guilty and can't look at me most of the time and he goes away for a long time and you never stay here, you just look for food and never talk to me and it's just me, just... Just..."

The girl sobbed, and Yang, watching her, felt a pang of pity at the sight.

Over at the door of the cabin, there was the sound of shifting stone and snow, as if someone was shovelling into it. Help on the way?

Feeling her Aura melt the ice around her mouth and neck, Yang struggled free, falling off the wall as she did so. Then, looking at the girl, Yang took a step forward.

"Hey-"

The Undine turned to Yang, the death glare returning to its eyes, and the snow from the door turned to icicles again, all of which started stabbing at Yang.

" _Shut up!_ " The Undine hissed. "This is _your fault!"_

The first icicle speared itself against Yang's chest and shattered, before all the shards grew into icicles of their own and stabbed towards her again. In only a few seconds, her Aura received a dozen blows. Yang wanted to fight back, but the girl...

She was in a bad enough way. She didn't need to be near a fight, not in a state like this. She needed help, not to be ignored.

Dodging to the side of the icicles flying at her, Yang kept her voice level.

"Is now the best time?" She asked. "Your friend needs your help more than my life needs to end."

The girl, sobbing in front of the wardrobe, didn't react, and the Undine seemed to grow even more angry at the comment.

"Shut up, shut up, _shut up!_ " It slowly grew more intense, it's monotone long gone, overwritten by anger, hate, the desire to see Yang _dead_. More and more snow from the door was pulled away to be turned into a projectile against Yang, and the yellow-haired teenager saw the Undine start sweating, breathing more and more heavily, as it did it's best to kill her.

There was no way for Yang to avoid all the attacks. Her Aura strained as the countless projectiles danced through the air. Much longer of this, and...

...Well, the Undine would tire itself out soon. Yang would be able to try and talk her down when she couldn't do anything.

Snow from outside begun being dragged into the cabin, creating more and more projectiles to be flung at Yang. For a second, before she had to dodge another cloud of projectiles, Yang saw a ray of light shine in, as the doorway began growing unblocked.

Another projectile hit Yang in the arm, and the girl felt her Aura nearly fade away. Another hit like that...

The wave of projectiles stopped for a moment, as all the ice and snow formed into a spiked barricade keeping Yang away from the Undine. Too thick for Ember Celica to shoot through and do anything. Yang could run through it, but with her Aura how it was, getting through it would take the last of her Aura. Right as she was surrounded by sharpened shrapnel that could dig into her flesh.

The fight stopped for a moment, as the Undine breathed heavily, exhausted from it's efforts. The unblocked doorway momentarily became filled, as a figure ran in. Looking towards it for a moment, Yang's eyes widened.

Cent had entered first, his sword raised, positioned just right that it'd take him only another few steps and a swing to behead the humanoid form of the Undine.

Right in front of the crying little girl.

The crying little girl who said she'd die if the Undine did.

Acting on instinct, Yang-

 **[X] Moved to stop Cent. He had too much momentum to stop, there wasn't any stopping at this point, but if she just charged through the wall and took the hit, she could shove him out of the way. She'd be hurt back, but wasn't that what a Hunter's job was?**

 **[X] Froze. Ember Celica couldn't fire through the wall in time, by the time Cent heard Yang say to stop the Undine would be missing a head, and if she ran through the wall she could end up n the brink of death herself. What could she do?**


	17. How To Save A Life

**[X] Moved to stop Cent. He had too much momentum to stop, there wasn't any stopping at this point, but if she just charged through the wall and took the hit, she could shove him out of the way. She'd be hurt back, but wasn't that what a Hunter's job was?**

Before it fully processed to Yang what she was doing, she was running. Sprinting as fast as she could, she barged through the walls with her eyes shielded by her elbow. The spikes covering it struck at her Aura before she hit the wall, so it shattered as Yang ran. When she continued her run, the spiked ice cut into her. She felt a cutting wound open up in her forearm, the one covering her eyes, and she was glad that she'd instinctively covered her eyes.

Then she felt the impact of the ice, and her momentum shattered the wall. The shard of ice cutting into her arm broke off, and was driven deeper into her arm by the force of the collision, but Yang worked through the pain. Her body would be bruised later, but for now, this was more important.

Cent was closer to the Undine then Yang was to Cent. The Undine, following the path of Yang's run, saw Cent approach and realised it was in danger. The girl behind the Undine wasn't reacting to anything.

The Undine was too exhausted to react in any meainingful, right now. Cent was moving too fast for it to run without risking the girl, and was too tired to use its magic to stop him.

But Yang was already in motion.

Around her, the shattered fragments of the wall began to fall. She felt dozens of them cut through her, front and back. Her thick clothing, meant to keep her warm, served as a somewhat protective layer, but enough sharpened fragments cut through that Yang cried out in pain.

A cut through the skin above her shoulder, a fragment cutting next to her spin, one cutting into her ribs, another striking the back of her head, more and more, to the point where the pain from one distracted Yang from identifying where another was hurting.

All that mattered was that she was _in_ pain.

...No, that didn't matter at all. She was a Huntress, or at least training to be one. It was in the job description, to be a foolhardy idiot and risk your life for another.

The girl said she'd die if the Undine died. Cent didn't know that, and would kill the Undine if he wasn't stopped. This was the only way to stop him in time.

With the amount of momentum behind her run, Yang barely stumbled as she burst through the ice, but it was still significant. Flinging her arm behind her, Yang fired Ember Celica to propel herself.

Cent heard the sound of a small explosion, and turned towards Yang as he started to bring his sword down. The Undine was starting to move out of the way, but wouldn't be able to move far enough in time without intervention.

The propulsion of her gun fired Yang through the air, while leaving a hole to the wall behind her. Just fast enough, for Yang to hit Cent's side, knocking him away from the Undine.

Cent hit the floor, and his sword hit the ground next to him. He let it go a moment later, as he tried to lift Yang up to move her off him.

"Yang?" He asked. "What are you doing?"

"Don't- Argh!" She cried out, as she moved her leg wrong and felt one of the shards of ice that hadn't melted yet move in her leg, cutting it further. She Closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, as she tried to count how _many_ were in her legs.

...Yeah, walking anytime soon? That's _hurt_!

"Yang!" Said a voice from outside, and the girl tilted her head to look over at the source.

Blast Yellowstone ran in, gun in his hand, followed by Winter quickly walking in after him. Winter gave Yang a concerned look, before turning her gaze to the Undine.

"Stop." Yang said, through gritted teeth. "We don't need to-"

"Hold on." Blast said. "You're losing a lot of blood, just-"

The Undine looked at Yang, it's expression unreadable, and Winter pointed a sword at it, waiting for it to move.

"Forget my blood." Yang replied. "Stupid stuff keeps trying to escape my body, let it go. Doesn't know what it's missing. Just stop fighting so we can _talk about this_."

The Undine spoke. "You-"

"Just _saved your life_." Yang snarled. "If I was a threat to you or her, why'd I get all..."

Her vision blurred for a second, and Yang trailed off so she could blink and shake her head to focus her vision.

"...Why'd I save you if I wanted to hurt you?" Yang asked.

Everyone looked at her for a moment, which Yang took as a cue to talk.

"There's no point to this whole fight." She grunted, trying to focus. She was losing blood, wasn't she? Just needed to not move around much... "Undine thought we were a threat, was looking out for a kid. We're not gonna get anywhere by fighting about it."

Turning her head to look at the Undine, Yang continued. "And she's not gonna be okay out here on her own. You just _saw_ her breaking down, the isolation's gonna get to her more as she's out here. And then there's the whole thing about _food_. Let her come with us. _We can help_."

"I-"

"No arguing here." Yang snapped. "I want this fight _over_ , and I want everyone to just _talk_ and _help each other_ and I want it done before I pass out from blood loss."

The Undine looked at Yang, then back at the girl.

"It'll be easier this way." Yang said, trying to be softer. "You can either stop fighting and let us help her, or keep fighting and risk her life. I'm the only one who heard about the Pact thingy, after all-"

"I will stop."

"-So if you don't just try to talk about this, you could-"

"Yang." Blast said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "She said she'd stop."

Yang blinked. "...Oh. Didn't hear that."

"You're losing a lot of blood." Blast said. "You should really just relax. Let me handle this-"

There was the sound of wooshing air outside.

"Yang." Winter said. "You need to get back to the airship. Back to the medical bay. Which you have spent more time in than out of. I've got a Nevermore outside, it'll fly you back. Blast, go with Yang. If it starts getting too windy, stab the Nevermore, it'll go straight to the ground and walk you the rest of the way back."

"Yes, boss." Blast said, and through her blurred vision, Yang saw one of the blurs moving.

...Probably Blast reacting in some way. Yang took a step towards what she thought was the door, but stumbled.

"Easy, there." Blast said. "Boss said to help you back, so don't open up any of those wounds any worse, or _I'll_ get yelled at."

Yang blearily nodded, and closed her eyes. The blurring was starting to give her a headache.

"...m'fine." She muttered.

"And I'm the crown princess of the lost land of Atlanta." Blast replied.

He might have said something after that, but Yang was finding it hard to concentrate.

...Heh. Concentrate. Con-cent-rate. Cent.

Even barely conscious, Yang was hilarious.

* * *

Yang opened her eyes to the sound of beeping, and it occurred to her that she didn't remember passing out.

Well, at least she wasn't in pain this time. A lot of smaller wounds were a pain at the time, but with Aura and proper healing, at least it didn't hurt too bad.

Yang reached an arm out to stretch it, but hissed in pain a moment later, as the cut on her arm stung.

...That was gonna take a while to heal, wasn't it?

In fact, some of it might. A lot of it was just some cuts, but a lot of that ice had gone in rather deep. When there was too many wounds, they'd heal slower. It might take Yang a while before she was one-hundred percent again.

There were footsteps, and Yang turned to the source. As she did so, she paused momentarily at the sight of the broken door, unchanged except for how the area around the hole was now shiny and where the hole once was, there was a lot of tape. But then she saw the person ducking underneath and she blinked.

"Cent?" Yang asked.

"Thought I heard something." He said. "You're awake, then?"

"Yeah..." The yellow-haired girl replied.

"Good, good." Cent continued. "Being awake's a good thing. Your body can only heal so many muscles at once, and when you're asleep, it focuses on healing your brain so it doesn't degrade from not using it while sleeping."

"...Uh huh."

Cent looked like he was going to defend his statement, but then let it go. "Hey, Yang?"

"Hm?"

"I... Well, Winter talked with the Undine a bit." He said. "Two did too, once she arrived. They mentioned the whole Pact thing. How killing the Undine would've killed the girl. And... Well, thanks."

"Thanks?" Yang asked.

"For stopping me." Cent said. "I know I'm an idiot at times, but I would've felt like shit if I ended up killing a little girl. Two would have been heartbroken, and that would have made me feel worse, and... Well, thanks."

"t'was nothin'..." Yang groaned out.

"You're in a hospital bed." Cent replied.

"I'm getting used to it." Yang replied. "I wonder if Winter would let me move all my stuff in here, or if she'd think that was me asking for permission to continue being stupid and reckless and risking my life. She might actually kill me to stop me from doing so for much longer."

"I hear ya..." Cent replied. "Well, anyway, thanks. I owe you one, Yang. Really do."

"Don't worry about it." Yang replied. "Hey, what happened to the girl and Undine anyway?"

"Everyone's on the airship." Cent said. "The girl was given a room because she wasn't reacting. The Undine is with Winter, talking. Everyone else is listening in on Winter or walking around. They'd probably want to know you're awake, now that I think about it. And they could explain what happened better than me. I was too busy trying to find an appropriate time to flirt with Two to pay attention."

"...Well, at least you're honest about it." Yang noted drily.

Cent shrugged. "Well, it's not like there's a better use of my time. Anyway, I'll go get the others. You just stay right there, okay?"

"I would move." Yang started. "But that brings us back to the 'Winter would actually kill me' thing."

Cent chuckled, as he slid back under the broken door. As he did so, Yang looked upwards, up at the ceiling.

It was still unfamiliar, but it was less unfamiliar than before. She'd seen it before, but wasn't used to it. She hoped she didn't get used to it. It was always a bad sign when you recognised the roof of a hospital or medbay.

Yang admitted she was a thrillseeker, but she at least thought she'd learnt enough caution to not end up hurt every...

...In fact, wasn't it only a day or two since she had gotten _out_ of the medbay?

God damn it, it was like she was some sort of walking injury magnet. At this rate, Yang wouldn't be surprised if she tried to go on a fishing boat and ended up filled with fishing hooks and harpoons-

There was a firing sound, followed by something hitting Yang in her stomach. She cried out in reflex, as her back arched forward, and she reached down to feel the harpoon, and attached rope, that had bounced off her weakened Aura even as it shattered it.

Following the rope back to the source, Yang felt her heart plummet as she saw who had fired.

The harpoon gauntlets were being held by the girl from the cabin, who was looking at Yang with a tearstained face.

"You..." She choked. "My dad's..."

She couldn't finish the thought, instead slipping one of the oversized and loosely fitting gauntlets onto her hands as she approached Yang's side. Yang moved to get up and away, but stumbled as she tried to get off the hospital bed, falling to the ground face-first.

There was a weight on her back, as Yang felt the girl sit on top of her, before the gauntlet clad hand wrapped around Yang's neck. The girl's uncovered hand moved to tighten and hold the gauntlet's larger fingers over Yang's throat, but the hunter in training found her breathing cut off.

What the hell was happening now? The girl was trying to kill her? With the weapon of the mercenary from the vill-

Oh. _Oh._

That... That was the girl's father, wasn't it? And Yang had given the girl reason to think her father was dead earlier. And then she must have looked around in the rooms, found her father's weapons sitting on Yang's shelf like a trophy, and assumed...

Well, that hardly mattered right now, what with the girl trying to kill Yang. The yellow-haired girl felt the pain from the dozens of wounds on her body as she tried to escape the girl's grip without hurting her, and was rewarded with the girl tightening it.

Gritting her teeth, Yang wondered for a moment, what to do. It'd be possible to break out of this grip... But Yang didn't think she'd be able to do it without hurting the girl. An arm or a leg or _something_ , the girl was going to get hurt.

If she could just focus long enough, Yang could just wait for Cent to come back with the others... If she thought she could last that long.

By the way she had spots dancing in her vision already, Yang didn't think she'd be able to remain conscious for much longer. And if help didn't arrive soon enough, leaving Yang alone and defenceless against a crazed attack with a weapon that had nearly killed her once...

Struggling for oxygen, Yang-

 **[X] Resisted. The girl would get hurt, but it would be over in a moment. But if she hurt the girl too badly, it wouldn't help her mental state at all.**

 **[X] Waited. Help was coming, she just had to focus for a little bit. But even if it arrived in time, how were the others going to get her off without hurting her?**


	18. Troubled Child

**[X] Resisted. The girl would get hurt, but it would be over in a moment. But if she hurt the girl too badly, it wouldn't help her mental state at all.**

As the cold metal of the gauntlets tightened around her throat, Yang closed her eyes and focused.

...There was only one way that Yang was getting out of this situation. Even if she didn't really like it, it was too much of a risk to just wait and hope help arrived in time.

With the girl sitting on her back as she was, with her knees either side of Yang to pin down her injured arms, moving them would probably open up a _lot_ of wounds. But by twisting her back muscles slightly, ignoring the stabs of pain that happened as she did that, Yang was able to prepare herself.

With a burst of force, Yang bucked upwards, forcing the girl into the air. Using the opportunity that gave, Yang quickly spun around, getting to her knees, and brought up her better arm above her head to catch the girl as she fell, and stop her from landing full-force on Yang. The weight all hit Yang's arm, and even if it was the less injured one, there was still wounds on it, all of which spiked with pain as more pressure was put on the wounds. Ignoring the pain, Yang stood and swept her arm to the side, throwing the girl down into one of the hospital beds.

The girl gasped as the breath was knocked out of her, and before she could react, Yang took a step towards her.

The leg which stepped forward, her left leg, collapsed as the cuts in it stabbed pain into Yang, and she groaned in pain she she fell to her knee again. Gritting her teeth, Yang looked back up at the girl, and grabbed the arm with the gauntlet on it.

The girl tried to pull away, but even as injured as she was, Yang was being trained to be a hunter, and was dealing with what looked like a severely malnourished girl. They were both in a bad way, so Yang being naturally stronger gave her the advantage. Even if the girl's struggles just made her wounds worse.

Struggling to her feet again, Yang immediately lost her footing again, so just waited on one foot, as she used her other hand to reach over to the gauntlet the girl was wearing. Her hand struggled with it for a moment, trying to pull it off.

"No!" The girl cried, getting up and trying to jump at Yang. The yellow-haired teen quickly let go of the girl's arm with her left hand to hold her back, and gave up removing the gauntlet with her right, instead just focusing on keeping the gauntlet pointed in another direction, so it couldn't shoot.

The girl struggled at Yang, and the smaller figure reached for the Hunter in training with her spare hand. Yang moved her head back as the girl tried to jab at her eyes. Undeterred, the girl reached for where Yang was holding her bak, trying to wrest her arm away.

Yang quickly adjusted her grip, grabbing the girl's spare arm and using her forearm to hold the girl's body at bay. The girl leaned forward as much as she could, which was closer than Yang would have liked with how hard it was to hold her elbow still, and as the girl closed in, she slammed her head into Yang's.

Yang's head flinched back, dazed, but otherwise, Yang didn't move.

The girl continued to struggle, trying to headbutt Yang again, but now that she was expecting it, Yang was able to just hold her head back and twitch to the side when the girl went for it.

"Stop." Yang said. "We don't need t-"

"Shut up!" The girl shouted, jumping up from the hospital bed entirely and putting her entire weight on Yang's arm. Yang grunted as the pain flushed through her again, and she pushed the girl back, forcing her onto the hospital bed again but losing her grip on the gauntlet again.

The girl instantly moved her arm to point the harpoon at Yang, but Yang was fasted, able to grab the arm and point it over her shoulder quick enough. Before the girl could do anything else, Yang slid forward on her knee, holding her arm out to push against the girl's stomach to push her against the wall.

With the girl pinned as she was, she was unable to make further moves against Yang. Desperately, she struggled, trying to pull free from Yang's grip. Yang kept the girl pinned to the wall, pushing harder when the girl tried to slip out of the way.

The girl eventually got an idea, and kicked up into Yang's elbow, just hard enough to make it bend slightly. With that extra bit of space, the girl repositioned herself an rolled off the bed, trying to wrench her arm free of Yang's as she did so.

The gravity dragging the girl down was able to help pull the girl's arm out of Yang's grip, and the girl hit the ground. Gritting her teeth as she landed on her arm and ignoring the cracking sound as her full weight landed on it the wrong way, the girl tried to spin around as Yang reached for her, trying to get that gauntlet out of her way again.

"You don't need to do this." Yang said. The girl screamed at her, aiming at Yang once again. Yang dashed in and grabbed the gauntlet again before it fired, and in the corridor, she heard footsteps running.

About time.

"What's going on!" A voice called. Before Yang could reply, the Undine's water snake burst through the door, and made a move on Yang.

Yang let go of the girl and dived to the side, dodging the Undine, and as she did so, Winter dashed in.

With a wave of her hand, a glyph appeared between Yang, the Undine and the girl, which rippled slightly as the girl tried to fire the harpoon gauntlet at Yang.

The projectile bounced off the barrier, as Two rushed into the room. The others followed a moment later, and watched the scene for a moment.

The girl glared at Yang, tears falling out of her space, and the Undine took human form and looked back and forth between the girl and Yang.

"Explain." Winter said. "Now."

"Was nobody watching the girl?" Yang asked. "I feel like nobody was watching the girl."

"She should have been sleeping." The Undine said, in it's monotone.

"Shut up!" The girl shouted, running at the glyph and trying to barge through it. The arm not clad in the gauntlet hit the glyph and snapped further, and she cried out in pain. The Undine immediately dashed to her side and held her back, as everyone else watched.

"Let me go!" The girl shouted, reaching forward with the gauntlet-hand even as he other hand hung uselessly at her side. "She... My dad..."

The girl's gaze shifted to the gauntlet for a moment, and her words died in her throat as she sobbed.

"...You appear mistaken." Winter said, after a moment. Everyone turned to het.

"Let me guess." Winter said, as she looked at the gauntlet on the girl's arm. "You recognised your fathers weapon? Started sneaking around after you were left unattended, entered Yang's room, found them, and leapt to conclusions?"

The girl didn't react, so Winter continued.

"In which case, I should correct your misunderstanding." She stated. "Yang had those gauntlets because they were a gift from me. I was the one who killed the previous wearer."

The girl looked at Winter, her eyes widening. The Schnee turned her back.

"You..." The girl whispered, before struggling against the Undine's grip again, reaching for Winter. "No! I... Argh!"

The girl snarled as she tried to pull free, and the Undine held her still.

"Do you hate me?" Winter asked softly. "Do as you will. I killed your father. It wasn't even anything important to me. I never even knew his name. And I'll never know yours, either."

"Shut up!" The girl screamed. "I hate you!"

"And I care nothing for you." Winter replied. "Undine, take her to her room. Keep an eye on her. If she stays here, she'll just kill herself trying to kill me, now."

The Undine made an odd expression, then moved to drag the girl away.

"No! Stop! Let me- Let me _go!_ Let me... Just..."

The girl's sobs made it harder and harder to understand her, and as the Undine dragged her away, her voice slowly faded away.

"...Harsh." Nora said, looking at Winter.

"But perhaps necessary." Winter replied, as she turned to Yang and brought the glyph down. "The girl shouldn't bother you again, Yang. She'll be too occupied with a new target."

Yang looked at her for a moment. "...What the hell was that?"

Winter made a pained expression. "There was no way that conversation was going to go easily."

"You didn't need to-"

"She was trying to kill you, Yang." Winter replied. "Because of something I did. I don't pretend to be a therapist. She was going to try and kill _someone_ once she found out. It's best that she actually hates the person responsible."

"That's kinda messed up." Piran said.

"Let's talk of happier topics, if you would." Winter interjected. She stepped forward, lifting Yang up from her position on the floor gently, and put her back in a hospital bed.

"Like literally anything?" Cent asked.

"Perhaps." Winter replied. "We're heading back to the village tomorrow. Today is almost over, and in an area like this, with the suffering that the girl would be smelling like, it'd be best to avoid flying over anywhere with heavy Grimm activity until daylight."

"What are we going to do with her?" Yang asked. "It's not like we can take her with us past the village now, but she'd kinda... You know..."

"I'll take care of her." Two said, stepping forward. "She's... Not well. But! Once some time's passed, she'll be less likely to act out like that, and I can start trying to make her feel better! Maybe introduce some friends with the other orphans..."

"I'm sure you could manage it, Two." Cent said. "You're the nicest person in the world. I'm sure you can help her."

Two ignored Cent's statements, and Cent made a somewhat concerned expression like that. "...So you really are feeling bad for her right now..."

"Someone should probably check on the girl." Piran interrupted. "Her arm didn't look too good at the time. Is there anything portable to fix that?"

"She didn't seem like she had Aura." Yang said. "So that arm of hers won't heal right. And it sounded like it broke or something earlier. We... Should probably have left her here, and have everyone else leave."

"In hindsight." Winter noted. "Perhaps. But there's medical kits here which come with... Well, not Scrolls, but the technology is the same. Portable X-Rays, and a brief guide on how to set bones so they heal properly. And hopefully find any other possible injuries. She wasn't in a good state, so if there was a struggle-"

"Sorry." Yang said, as Piran and Two went off to look for the medical kits. "She surprised me. Took out my Aura. Was choking me. I... Didn't know how to resist without being rough."

"It's not your fault, Yang." Winter said. "Though, I do have to wonder. Are you _sure_ your Semblance is the power to make your Aura stronger when you take damage?"

"What else would it be?" Yang asked.

"You remind me of someone who frustrates me to no end." Winter noted. "Except instead of everyone around you having terrible luck, it's all centred on you."

Yang frowned for a moment. "I feel like I've heard that story before..."

"Well, nevermind." Winter said, noticing Two pull out the kit in the corner. "You should rest."

"I'd really like to leave this bed." Yang noted. "I heard legend of an airship outside of this room, but it remains unconfirmed."

"Finished!" A voice said from outside. Turning, Yang looked in to see Blast poking his head through.

"...What have you done?"

"I ran out for a moment to find Yang's room." Blast said. "Took down the nameplate above her door, and put it up here. More accurate, I believe."

Yang sighed. "Can we just move the medical equipment to my room?"

"This is where you belong now, Yang." Blast said. "This is where you live."

Yang sighed. "I'm going to spend this entire month injured, and Dad's never going to let me outside ever. I better start looking for a fun desk job..."

* * *

The paper shuffled, and the young woman put the paper on the desk.

"Yang Xiao Long." She mused. "An interesting person, isn't she?"

"If you need a break." The old man said. "You could just ask. I like to think I'm not too bossy."

The young woman smiled. "Oh, good. Don't take this the wrong way, but Yang's story so far is..."

"It's relevant." The old man said. "Two is there, and-"

"I know, I know." The woman said. "But she hasn't interacted with Two as much as I had hoped. I know that will change soon, and it'd be a waste to change our person of interest at some point. It's just..."

"We can't forget our others." The old man admitted. "While Miss Xiao Long will be meeting with Miss Rose again sometime soon, the circumstances surrounding Miss Nikos and Miss Belladonna should be at least noted."

"Exactly." The young woman replied, cheerfully. "It'd be really confusing if we didn't know how they were resolving their struggles, and then they turned up and behaved outside of expected parameters because they dealt with them in an unexpected way."

"Well, Miss Xiao Long will not be doing much of relevance for a while." The old man noted. "Perhaps we have time, to observe one of the others. Do you have any preference?"

The young woman mused on that.

"Pyrrha's going into that final round of the tournament soon." She mused. "If we dug into it now, we could use the broadcast to assist in our investigation. On the other hand, considering what is coming Blake's way, it might be wiser to investigate that now, before we lose track of her..."

"Or we could prepare to look into both and continue with Miss Xiao Long." The old man noted. "Delay both recordings and focus on your current person of interest, and record both of the others at once the next time an opening becomes available?"

The young woman mused on it for a moment.

 **[X] Blake Gaiden: How Is This Justice?**

 **[X] Pyrrha Gaiden: Toy Soldiers Playing War.**


	19. What's New Pussycat

**[X] Blake Gaiden: How Is This Justice?**

It was no secret that Blake Belladonna had been having trouble sleeping recently. Between the White Fang's violent tendencies growing more and more prevalent, and her own increasing skill in combat, she had been ending up in the thick of combat more and more recently.

Which was perfectly fine when she was fighting robots. Harder when she has to fight a trained bodyguard to hold the line for a larger White Fang force to complete their objective.

The problem came when Adam arrived to finish the fight covered in blood.

On an academic level, she knew people were being hurt and dying before then. It's another thing to know people had been hurt, or been killed, because she'd stopped help from getting to them.

Adam had seemed to notice her distress, which was why Blake hadn't been asked to participate in any other schemes since then, even though she could _hear_ the news every day afterwards.

It was to be expected. The White Fang don't make a statement like attacking a ball of the most powerful companies in Atlas and get away with it that easily. Everyone had seen the crackdown coming. They had been prepared for it.

Unable to get to sleep, Blake rolled off her bed, and went to go get a book.

Most of her belongings had been moved out of the apartment over the last few days. Atlas had found a few White Fang living quarters already, so she had to be prepared. The hotel she was staying in was owned by a White Fang sympathiser, and often got used as a base for the White Fang in Atlas. But if there was a crackdown, then Blake had to be ready for them to be sold out.

All that was in her apartment right now was a spare set of clothes, a few cheap books, and her gun. Everything else had been moved to a White Fang outpost outside the city, one that existed solely as an escape if things went too badly.

This had the unfortunate side effect of making things boring most of the time, leaving Blake with nothing but her thoughts. Which would always eventually lead to one of two places.

The first was that she'd hear the news of another member of the White Fang being caught out, being forced to flee their homes or ending up being arrested, a breakout failing, or whatever it was, and wondering if she could have turned it around if she had just _been there_.

And then she remembers Adam walking into the room covered in blood and wondering if someone would still be alive if she _hadn't_ been there.

And of course someone was dead. Adam tried to avoid giving her an answer, saying that he'd let her know after she took some time off to get over it, but that's as good as saying that whoever was bleeding didn't walk away. Why dodge the question otherwise?

Flicking open the pages to her book, Blake took a moment to look at the cover and see which novel she had taken this time.

...Hm. The Silent Prince. Not one she'd read before. She was familiar with the author, though. He had a reputation for dark stories, but Blake had to admit, the romance in his last few books was rather good, even if it was just a side-thing.

Turning to the front page and admiring the artwork inside the cover of a swordsman standing before a dragon, Blake moved to sit down and read until she tired herself out. But as she walked back towards her bed, she saw something out of the window, in the corner of her eye. Curious, Blake turned towards the window to see what it was.

An airship was hovering in the air near the hotel. Usually, an airship in the middle of the city would be covered in lights, especially this low down. This one was dark, and not moving.

A sinking feeling in her chest, Blake looked down.

it was hard to see the road from this high up, but she was fairly sure there was an unusual amount of people walking around. And why would there be cars driving around this late? Especially that slow?

Something was going on here.

Putting the book back and quickly pulling out a scroll linked to the hotel's communication array, Blake opened up the contacts and dialled management.

Nothing. Communication error.

There was too much wrong with this situation. Putting the scroll down, Blake picked up Gambol Shroud, and holstered it. She needed to figure out what was going on, before something _actually_ started going on.

As she stepped out of her apartment and into the hallway, Blake heard the elevator in the distance ding. Looking over at it as it opened, she saw several robots walk out, looking around.

The hotel was being raided. The White Fang had been sold out.

Dashing at the robots before they could see her, Blake opened fire. One robot went down quickly, and the others opened fire. Simply using her Semblance to dodge and leave a shadow replica to take the hit, Blake was able to close into close range in only a few moments.

Sliding on the floor, the Faunus swept her weapon on the floor in front of her, knocking down another robot, before creating another shadow replica to throw her into the air. From above the robots, Blake found it easy enough to swipe at them with Gambol Shroud.

A few bullets struck her side, but nothing able to break through he Aura. Blake hit the ground at the same time as the last part of the last robot, and the fight was over.

A moment passed, before another door in the corridor opened up. A woman's head poked through, with small pseudo-antlers poking out from the top of it, to see what was happening.

"...Blake?" The woman asked, and the cat Faunus suddenly felt bad at not knowing who the woman was. "What happened?"

"Robots sweeping the building." She said. "Airships and cars hanging around the building trying to avoid attention. Communications are done. We've been sold out."

The woman's eyes widened. "What? But... Who would have-"

"We can ask questions later." Blake interrupted. "Can you fight?"

The woman paused. "Yes." She said, eventually. "So can my husband. But our son's too young, and he's here too."

Blake winces. "...Does he know that you're-"

"No." The woman said.

"I'm sorry." Blake replied. "I'll try and delay people as long as I can, wake your family and try to spread the word."

The woman nodded, and Blake turned to the elevator. It had closed in the fight, most likely moving more robots to more floors. Pressing the button to call the elevator up, Blake leapt to the roof and lodged herself in place above the elevator.

A moment later, there was a ding, and the doors open. The robots took a few steps out, but then saw the wreckage on the ground, and stopped.

In that moment of confusion, Blake leapt down, demolishing all of those who had exited the elevator. The ones immediately behind them were too slow to respond to the sudden attack, and so Blake was able to start swiping at them, knocking bullets out of the air as they approached her and making short work of a second force.

It wasn't too strong, the groups being sent. But then, the police force was attacking in the middle of the night. They were probably keeping the forces to a minimum, to avoid over-expenditure of valuable assets until they knew that the White Fang forces in the hotel were aware of their presence. Capture as many suspects as possible with the minimum amount of force.

Blake noticed the elevator buttons to the right of the door, and how the ground floor button was lit. The doors closed, and the elevator began moving downward. Quickly, the Faunus went to it, and started pressing every button on the elevator.

The elevator stopped a moment later, three floors below where Blake had boarded, and the Faunus girl stepped out of it to confront the next force.

Either side of the elevator, from corner to corner, Blake saw nothing. After a moment, however, she heard a door opening. Quickly running to the left and rounding the corner, she saw a group of three robots standing in front of an open door. A moment passed, and then there was a crash from inside the apartment.

Lining up her shot, Blake took fire and shot down one of the robots. It fell, and before the others could turn to see her, Blake twisted back around and hid behind the corner.

There was silence for a moment, except for more crashing sounds inside the apartment, and then slow footsteps started approaching the corner. Holding her gun and aiming towards the wall where the robots would have to wait, Blake waited.

She saw motion, and fired. Another robot fell, and then she rounded the corner and kicked the third into a wall before it could react. Her blade came down on it, and the robotic head fell off.

Looking back to the apartment, Blake saw a fourth robot be thrown out of the door, through a wall. There was a stairway on the other side of that wall. The robot wouldn't be back up for a moment.

The robot was followed a moment later by a large man with the ears of a bear, who looked at the wall for a moment. Then, he looked around, and saw Blake.

"Oi." The bear man said. "You're that kid who Adam was training, weren't you? Blake or whatever?"

"That's me." The cat girl replied. "This is the third group of robots I've encountered. I don't think it's deniable that we're being busted."

"A police raid?" The bear man asked. "...Crap. I hadn't heard my human neighbours all night, and the robots just walked into my apartment like they knew they were finding an enemy within."

"We were sold out." Blake noted. "And those not in the White Fang were given time to get out of here. How did nobody notice?"

The bear man fumed for a moment. "Hey, Blake, right? Any reason the whole buildings not on alert?"

"I tried to give warning earlier." She said. "Communications were shut down."

"Figures." The bear man muttered. "Can't get a message out like this. Not unless the alarm is unguarded."

"Alarm?" Blake asked.

"In the penthouse." The bear man noted. "The fire alarm up there was rigged. If you flip it on and off again three times while there's no smoke around, it'll send an emergency message to anyone in the White Fang."

"So we just do that, and help starts coming?"

The bear man nodded.

"...Risky." Blake noted. "We'd be drawing more people into an ambush. We really need to be getting away. But, that might be hard if Atlas has the concentration of force and are blocking the exits..."

"I'm going down to the lobby." The bear man noted. "That's where most people would be trying to escape through, and it's where there's likely to be a force waiting to catch people. If I can be enough of a distraction to get others out..."

The man trailed off, cracking his neck. "Need to get my rapier..."

Blake watched him go inside, then turned and left, planning out her next move.

There were three options, in front of her. First was to go down to the lobby as well, cut off the robots in the elevator and stop more of the automata being sent in. Provide a distraction and a way out for people at the same time. But there were already robots in the hotel, and if left unattended, they'd end up capturing more sleeping people. Trying to warn as many people as possible, who could warn others and fight back as well, might be smart.

Or she could go and call for help. It'd take a while to arrive, but if, say, Adam turned up with a handful of the White Fang's top fighters, then any initial force was likely to be torn through. They'd need to flee before Atlas sent the big guns which could turn the tables, but anyone who evaded arrest for that long would be free to go.

Of course, that only really helped if the White Fang outside of the hotel hadn't already noticed that something was going on, which was entirely possible. It was possible that Blake would end up just wasting time that could be used helping people get away.

Thinking about it for a moment, Blake-

 **[X] Ran through the floors and ensured as many people as possible were aware of the threat.**

 **[X] Took the elevator to the lobby and fought everyone there, to buy time.**

 **[X] Made for the penthouse and the emergency button, even if it meant fighting whatever force was already up there.**


	20. Head Full of Steam

**[X] Ran through the floors and ensured as many people as possible were aware of the threat.**

Bounding up the stairs like the dogs of hell were at her heels, Blake quickly rounding the corner to find another group of robots standing around an open door. The same as the last few groups, it was of no challenge to the White Fang member.

Her blade tore through steel like it wasn't even there, and the robots weren't advanced enough to survive long enough to get a hit. Working her way through them didn't even warrant a mention.

As the last of the ones in the hallway feel, there was a gunshot from inside, and Blake turned, ready to dodge. But then she saw the robot wasn't aiming at her.

The machine has fired at a wolf-eared teenage girl, Blake's age at best, who stumbled. Her Aura held strong, but the girl collapsed at the hit. She seemed barely conscious, she wasn't able to focus enough to ignore the force of the bullet entirely. A knife fell from the wolf girl's hand, and a robotic monotone came from the automata.

"Cease resistance immediately." It stuttered. "You-"

It got no further, as Blake opened fire. It turned to face her as the first bullet hit it's shoulder, but the next two tore through it's head and destroyed it. Ignoring the remains as it collapsed, Blake rushed to the wolf-girl's side.

"Are you all right?" She asked.

The wolf girl looked up blearily. "Mph... Hurts..."

"It's going to be alright." Blake said.

"My home..." The girl muttered. "Only one I got... Not taking it..."

Blake looked at the Faunus, and took a moment to consider her next statement.

"The entire building is being raided by Atlas." She said. "We need to move.

The girl's eyes widened slightly, even if her response was still sluggish. "...Wha?"

"You need to wake up properly." Blake advised. "Those robots were nearly enough to take you when you can't focus, you're going to need to concentrate if you want to fight your way out."

Groaning, the girl sat up. "What's..."

"No time to explain." Blake said. "There could be more Atlas machines flooding the building, and there's other people in here. Do you think you can wake up anyone on this floor?"

The wolf girl frowned. "I... Guess? I don't really know them-"

"Doesn't matter." Blake said. "It looks like everyone except suspected White Fang members were evacuated before the robots came in."

The wolf girl rubbed her eyes with her fingers , then slapped her cheek a few times. "...So just people in the Fang, then? I can talk with them."

"Get them awake and tell them we're under attack." Blake said. "I'm heading up to spread the word."

"Good luck!" The girl chirped. "I'll see you when we get out, then!"

Noting that, Blake left the apartment, and started running again. It took a few moments to get to the next set of stairs, where the next set of robots where. This time, they'd had time to get their target. A woman with a blindfold and large ears was surrounded on all sides by robots, stumbling along with her hands tied behind her back and four guns aimed at her.

The woman's ears twitched as the cat Faunus watched from around the corner, and her head tilted towards Blake's direction.

A bat Faunus?

Rounding the corner before the robots could take her to the elevator, Blake held her fire. Wouldn't do if she missed and hit the woman. Instead, she checked that the ribbon on her weapon was tied to her arm, and threw it.

It hit the robot to the right of the woman just fine, impaling the machine and letting Blake pull it forward into the machine in front of the bat Faunus.

The robot at the back of the pack knocked the woman to the side to get a clear shot at Blake, and the other machine opened fire. Blake slid under ths hots, reaching the body her weapon was impaled in, and ripped it out. Kicking up the robotic remains into a third robot, Blake bought herself enough time to dash in close and cleave through the machine.

She turned to the fourth, but the ding of the elevator made her stop. Hearing a sound, Blake dodged to the side, and where she was standing a moment earlier, a young woman stabbed through.

The newcomer was undoubtedly human, and was wearing a... Curious outfit, which seemed to be some sort of armour made of different sized gears.

"Hm." The woman noted. "Fast. So, you're the reason we've had a bunch of bots go offline up here?"

Blake ignored her, taking the opportunity to shoot to her side and take down the last standing robot.

"The quiet type, then." The woman sighed. "What exactly are you going for here? Vaguely sad little girl meant to prove that the poor little terrorists aren't all bad peple? Mysterious silent unknown who's using the mystery for intimidation? Or are you just no good at bante-"

The bat-woman on the floor _screamed_ , and a shockwave shook the corridor. Dust shook from the ceiling, and the human stumbled back, clutching at her ears. Ignoring the pain in her own ears, Blake dug her nails into her palm to focus, and moved to strike as the scream ended.

Her sword slashed at the woman's Aura, and before the woman could stumble more than a step, quickly changed into the pistol form, which opened fire. The bullets tore through the woman's Aura and pushed her back more and more, until the woman was against the wall.

Switching back to melee, Blake dashed in for what was likely a fight-ending blow, only for the woman to recover with record speed, flashing at Blake and forcing the car Faunus to leave a shadow behind to take the blow for her.

"You're good." The woman noted. "Maybe I should've stuck with the experienced officers like I was supposed to. Still, you haven't given me a shot yet, little miss mysterious."

And with that, the gears surrounding the woman like armour began spinning, and steam started bellowing out of the woman. Blake felt some of it touch her skin and hissed as it started burning, melting away at her Aura like a knife through butter, and the cat Faunus flipped back, stopping next to the bat Faunus. Quickly measuring the speed of steam expanding through the floor, Blake gulped.

Already, the steam was almost up to her. She allowed herself only a pause long enough to cut at the handcuffs holding the bat Faunus, then fired into the smoke.

A geyser of steam burst out of the cloud at Blake, who left a shadow behind to swiften her dodge, even as she continued firing. A second jet of steam, and then a third, fired at Blake, who continued to try and fire at the source.

When the fourth ran past, Blake noted that the first three had begun fading, and dodged away from the wall back, back towards the bat Faunus.

Then the steam bursting at Blake changed directions and the cat Faunus realised that it was just big enough to conceal a humanoid figure, before the sword cleaved out of the steam and into her torso.

Her Aura taking a hit before she could react, Blake rolled as she hit the floor, getting to her feet as fast as she could, before firing into the steam again. As she did so, an echo of the sword swing appeared in the form of a wave of steam shooting at her.

The bat Faunus screamed again, and the shockwave hit the corridor again. Blake stopped firing as he aim was thrown off, but the steam was pushed away from the cat, exposing the woman at the core of it.

She was panting, short of breath, and exhausted. The gears of her armour where throwing off sparks, and there was a noticeable burn on the side of her face.

"I don't suppose..." The woman huffed. "That you're surrendering?"

Blake aimed a gun at her face.

"Worth a shot..." The woman puffed, before taking a tired swing at Blake. The steam coming away from her was weaker, but focused on the sword, trying to deal as much damage in a single blow.

Blake used her Semblance to leave behind a shadow for the woman to hit, appearing behind her at the same time it faded away. She didn't even need to use her weapon, just hitting the woman with her fist was enough to destroy the last of her Aura.

The woman collapsed, panted for a moment, and tried to claw her way towards the elevator.

Standing up, the bat Faunus walked towards one of the destroyed robots, and picked up a rifle. Right in front of Blake, she aimed at the woman on the ground.

Dashing to the woman's side, Blake grabbed the barrel of the rifle and jolted it upwards, into the roof. It fired off once, before the woman stopped.

"What are you doing?" The bat Faunus asked.

"She's beaten." Blake responded. "We don't need to take this any further."

The bat Faunus made an angry face. "You- We've been _attacked!_ We're going to have to run! How am I supposed to explain this to my sister?"

"Will killing her change the fact that you're forced to run?" Blake asked. "Or will it just mean you need to run more? Atlas cracks down harder on killers."

The bat Faunus gave Blake a look, before closing her eyes. Blake could see the reluctance on her face as she let go of the rifle, letting it fall to the ground.

"Is there anyone else on this floor?" Blake asked.

"A few." The bat said, in a quiet voice. "Fang members. My sister. Younger than you and has nothing to do with the Fang. I probably just woke them all up, too."

"Get them out of here." Blake said, before turning towards the woman in the clockwork armour.

"You..." The woman wheezed.

Blake didn't respond, as she grabbed the woman's arm, picking her up slightly and carrying her towards the elevator.

"Why?" The woman asked. "There was no reason..."

"Exactly." Blake said, pushing the call button on the elevator. It hadn't moved since the woman stepped out of it, and Blake pushed her on. "There was no reason."

Reaching around and pushing the button to the ground floor, Blake stepped away from the elevator, turning towards the next set of stairs up.

As she did so, she passed the bat Faunus.

"...Belladonna?" The bat asked. "I... Fuck. I shouldn't have gotten angry at you. You're not the enemy here. Sorry."

Blake did her best to avoid noticing that the woman wasn't apologising for trying to kill the human woman.

"It's no trouble." The cat Faunus responded. "This is a shock to everyone. Try to get people out."

The bat nodded, and turned to open a nearby door.

Running past her, Blake bounded up another set of stairs, and paused.

This was her floor again. Nothing new here. She saw the deer Faunus talking to a man with a donkey's tail, and nodded.

Everything was fine here, at least.

Running up another floor, however, and Blake was immediately suspicious of how empty it was.

Slowing her pace, she looked around.

It didn't look like there were any traps. Nothing out of place that might be explosives or tripwire or part of an ambush. She doubted that Atlas would have had enough time to set one up, anyway.

Then she heard an airship moving, and she looked out the window just in time to see it open fire.

Bullets ripped through the wall in front of Blake and the walls and doors behind her, and the cat Faunus immediately began running. The stream of bullets followed her down the path, and as she approached the corner, Blake realised that, if she didn't change something, it'd just need to shoot straight to have a good chance of hitting her.

So when she reached the corner, she didn't change direction to run down it. Instead, she set course for the window.

There was a shattering of glass, and Blake hovered in the air for a moment. She threw Gambol Shroud again, and it wrapped around the barrel of the gun on front of the airship. A moment later, and Blake was swinging around, quickly positioning herself above the airship, at which point she pulled on her weapon to get closer to it.

It was a small airship. Most likely originally brought along to scout out possible threats from the outside, with a weapon to be used in case of emergency. And, most importantly, a one-person crew.

Looking around the airship, Blake kept and eye out for a latch. While the opening and closing of the entrance was likely automated, in an airship this small, if the mechanism jammed up, there'd need to be a manual way to pry it open. Just cutting a hole in it would mean basically cutting it in half.

Seeing a small latch near the front, Blake stabbed her weapon into the roof of the airship and slid down towards it. Passing over the front, she got to the latch quickly enough, and reached to pry it open.

The airship spun around, and Blake quickly climbed back up her ribbon, before it could slam her into the building. As it was, she got just high enough that she merely _almost_ hit her as the ribbon swung her around. Which was enough for Blake to kick off and get back to the airship.

Alright, that wasn't going to work? Time for plan B, then. Atlas pilots were picked out of people with enough Aura to survive a crash, which meant...

Pulling her weapon out of the airship, Blake stepped off, before stabbing into the side of the airship. With her weapon in two parts, she was able to stab into it twice, getting a good enough grip while still being close enough to the airship that the pilot couldn't just crash to force her off. Looking around fron that position, Blake saw the engines keeping the airship up.

Pulling one of her blades free, Blake turned it into a pistol and opened fire.

The engine took a few hits, and then started beeping. There was a muffled swearing sound, followed by the sound of an ejection, as the airship pilot bailed out before the airship could go down.

Still attached to the side, Blake waited for a chance to leap away from it. Jumping at the building even as the airship went down, she ran diagonally down it, getting closer to the ground, before jumping down and rolling on the ground.

The airship hit the ground with a heavy thud, and Blake had just enough time to note that it didn't explode, before she heard the cocking of many guns.

"You're under arrest." Said a masculine voice. "For... A lot of things, currently. Do not resist. We have you surrounded and outmatched."

A second voice spoke, from behind the first speaker.

"For now."

There was a shattering sound, as the man who tried to arrest Blake collapsed. A red sword swept through the air behind him, already moving on to it's next target. Said target, a middle-aged woman, clicked her fingers to create a ball of flame around her, but there was the sound of a cut, and the flames died as quickly as they had come.

All the others surrounding Blake turned to the new figure, who paused just long enough for everyone to get a look at him.

"I thought I told you to take a vacation, Blake." Came the familiar voice of Adam Taurus.

Before Blake could try and reply, the remaining Atlas forces made their move. One of them pulled out two tommy guns, one in each hand, before flickering, his form changing so he had twelve hands, each with a tommy gun. He opened fire all of them at once, sending hundreds of bullets at Blake and Adam in a second.

In a flash, Adam was standing before Blake, his sword moving so fast that it was invisible to the naked eye. The only hint that his sword was moving at all was the way the bullets deflected around Adam, every single one that would have hit true veering off into a different direction.

Behind the twelve-armed man, a woman held a fist in the air, and let out a cry. Around Adam, the ground ripped upwards, leaving a small circle for him to stand on while the rest of it formed a fist above his head. It hovered, and as Blake watched, the woman moved her grip to try and turn the fist downward.

Adam looked at her, and shifting his stance slightly, continued to deflect bullets. After a moment, a bullet struck at the woman, causing the man wit hthe tommy gun to stop firing, abandoning all but two of his guns, which fused together into some sort of pole weapon.

The final figure, whose gender Blake couldn't identify on a glance, charged into Adam at the same time as the twelve armed man, striking out with knives which he dropped as soon as his attacks missed. With almost casual ease, Adam sheathed his sword, and waited.

In the few seconds that followed, neither man was able to hit Adam, who kicked up one of the daggers and sent it flying at the woman again. She blocked with a shield of stone, but that left her distracted enough that she was unable to help with the fight for the rest of that vital second.

Then Adam struck, unsheathing his sword with a fiery blast that shredded the pole used by the twelve-armed man, as well as reducing his arms down to a more manageable number. He cried out as he fell backwards, all of his micellaneous arms fading until he only had his original two, and the man with the daggers desperately closed in. All of his daggers started glowing, and Adam simply hit his face with the hilt of his sword before he could do anything.

The woman's earth shield fell down as the man's daggers stopped glowing, and before she could react, Adam cut her down too, tearing through her Aura and sending her falling to the floor. For one vital moment, Blake saw Adam's arm twitch, before it froze. She noticed his gaze turn to him for a moment, and Blake realised that he was half a thought away from ending the woman's life.

Instead, Adam sheathed his sword. Holding back on her account.

"Blake." Adam began. "I need you to go. Meet me at the outpost outside the walls."

Blake didn't need to ask which one. Adam wouldn't say anyway, given the risk of being overheard, but it was clear from the context which one he meant.

So they were leaving Atlas soon, then. The base in question was a temporary one, only meant to store a few large airships in case of emergency.

"What about everyone else?" Blake asked.

"I'm here." Adam replied. "And I know what you'e thinking, Blake. Anyone who doesn't make it out without me isn't going to make it out because you stayed behind. Lose any pursuers, and get to the base. Tell Schramm that I'm ordering a large evacuation, to make things as difficult as possible for Atlas. I need you to do this, Blake."

...There wasn't any reason not to listen to him, Blake realised. He was right. She wouldn't be that much of a difference here, and while she thought he was exaggerating on not being able to help one person more with her presence, she'd help everyone a lot by getting to the base.

The sooner she got there, the more prepared to go people would be when she got there. The harder it'd be for Atlas to pursue. The more likely Atlas was to decide that pursuing was too costly.

"Understood." Blake said, sheathing her weapon. Adam nodded, then turned back to the hotel.

As he walked toward it, sword in hand, Blake fled.

 **Blake needs to ensure she isn't being pursued. What's the best way to do that?**

 **[X] They won't send too much of a pursuit after one Faunus getting away. Lead them somewhere open, fight them, and stop them in combat.**

 **[X] They won't cause a scene in the richer parts of town. Pass by the marketing district, it'd be too crowded to track her in the crowd there.**


	21. Bloody Snow

**[X] They won't cause a scene in the richer parts of town. Pass by the marketing district, it'd be too crowded to track her in the crowd there.**

In most cities, there was a contrast, between the rich areas and poor areas. In the heart of Atlas, however, the people were so rich that they only wanted the rich around them. It was something of a PR statement to the other Kingdoms, partially. Every Kingdom had some issues with poverty, but Atlas held as a matter of pride that they were efficient and wealthy enough that anyone who lived in the Kingdom's capital lived in what at least _looked_ like decent conditions.

What this meant in practice was that there was a lot of miner jobs and low-cost hotels that were prettied up by the Government, but the point remained was that you couldn't judge the richer areas and the poorer areas by sight alone. The buildings weren't any cleaner, or constructed any differently. Instead, the way to identify the wealthier parts of the city were to look for the snowflake signs.

Some would say that was an exaggeration, but the Schnee had fingers in a lot of pies. There's be at least one sign hanging somewhere, a billboard o advertisement or _something_ , anywhere that they could smell a profit.

The market district was the perfect sign of this. It was, primarily, designed to be open so that anyone walking the streets this late would have something to waste their money on. The issue arose quickly of what exactly people would be spending their money on so late, what could possibly be so important they they need to be awake in the middle of the night to buy. And then the Schnee Dust Corporation had the bright idea of setting it up as a tourist trap.

Set up a few hotels for tourists nearby, set up a few fancy stalls selling food and necessities for a tourist who suddenly realised in the middle of the night that they were running low on something, cover their bases by setting up a few dust shops and ammo supply shops, and finish the rest of it with Atlas delicacies and merchandise.

It took years to start working, but once the tourists really started flowing, the SDC buildings nearby were rented out to shopkeepers, which meant that long-term sustainability of the side-products became less important. A shop could come in, be gimmicky for a month and earn a lot of profits, give the SDC a portion of their profits in rent, and if the novelty ever wore off, they left and were replaced by someone else.

Within a few years, the market district had become a self-sustaining entity in itself. Even discounting the proximity to tourist hotels, the area earned up enough of a reputation as a wealthy marketplace that merchants would try to sell their products there at night, which kept more people coming to it at night.

It also meant that there was usually a crowd in the area. Tourists looking around, people who were looking to see if any sales out here would be cheaper than the prices elsewhere in the middle of the day, and whatever other reason people had to be in the area at the time. It wasn't much of a crowd, but because it was a richer area full of tourists, Atlas police wouldn't want to cause a scene. That, combined with how they were spread too thin cracking down on the White Fang to keep an officer in the area to monitor people when they could just respond to any emergency calls, meant that Blake had a good chance of losing the trail of any pursuers there.

Of course, before she could be sure she had lost pursuit, she needed to get a change of look. If anyone saw her getting away and took sight of her, they'd notice a girl in black with a ribbon on her head.

Thankfully, she was good here. She'd had plenty of experience pickpocketing before, and while she wasn't the best, a richer area like this wouldn't have people as guarded in regards to their wallets. And people were tired and partially asleep, in most cases.

Hiding her ribbon was easy enough. There was a distracted woman talking to someone with a scroll at her ear, with a cap loosely hanging to the top of her head. Blake picked it off her head as she passed, bringing it down to her side and concealing it from view fairly quickly. She waited a bit longer before putting it on, making sure she was far enough away from the woman that it wouldn't be suspicious.

It was a normal tourist cap, white with a snowflake on front. Rather tacky, but they were sold around here, so it was easy enough to claim that the cap was purchased with her own money.

Which required she actually had money to be believable, but that was easily resolved. Walk past someone who seemed tired, keep an eye on their pockets, see if any looked filled.

It took a while, but eventually, she passed behind someone who's wallet was half hanging out of their back pocket. Swift fingers pulled it out, and Blake quickly reached into it, pulled out all the notes in it, then dropped the wallet behind her.

Hopefully, when the man noticed that he was lacking his wallet, he'd assume it just fell out of his pocket when he walked past. Getting some distance just to be sure, Blake waited until the man was out of sight before she counted her funds.

It wasn't much, but it should be enough for her needs. Walking around a bit more, Blake identified a clothing store of some kind, and walked in.

It took a moment for the exchange of funds to go through, as Blake purchased a white jacket from the old man within- Hadn't she seen him somewhere before?- And put it on as she walked out of the store.

There, that should be good to cover her for now. To anyone who looked, she'd have a monochrome colour scheme, with a white hat and jacket over black clothing and hair.

Confident in her design, Blake started heading for a city exit. Or, rather, a hidden tunnel near an exit. The White Fang had prepared an escape route, after all.

Heading that way, Blake noted a man in a uniform standing in the middle of the walkway. Scanning over the crowd, the officer's gaze passed right over Blake, suspiciously but not focused in that suspicion. He wasn't so much suspicious of her as he was suspicious of everyone.

Blake's gaze lingered a moment too long on the officer, and he noticed her look out of the corner of his eyes. Focusing on Blake, the officer seemed considerate for a moment, before Blake thought quickly.

She still had some money left, and there was a stall on the other side of the walkway.

Walking past the officer, Blake went up to the stall, noting the merchandise being sold.

There were dozens of small portraits on display, not the best quality, but considering how many there were, rather impressive. She noted that a lot of them seemed to portray the Schnee family.

"Like what you see?" The woman at the stall asked.

"It's certainly pleasing to the eye..." Blake responded.

"Feel free to browse as you wish." The woman said." Even if you can't afford anything, just the knowledge that it caught your eye is plenty for me."

What a nice person, Blake noted. That, or desperate.

At the side of the stall, Blake noted an interesting painting. The CEO of the Schnee Dust Corporation, Jacques Schnee, and his wife, who's name Blake couldn't recall at the current moment. It seemed to be reminiscent of a wedding, except the man was dressed in an outfit that was traditionally worn in times of mourning, and the woman's white dress was stained red.

It didn't look completed, which gave Blake the idea it had only been painted recently. And suddenly, a terrible thought came to her.

"I haven't been able to keep an eye on the news recently." Blake claimed. "I've been travelling recently. Is there any reason behind-"

"You haven't heard?" The woman asked. "Oh, it's such a sad story, too. The Schnee family were holding a ball, a celebration of the anniversary of their marriage, and the White Fang turn up to make a statement. What exactly happened is something people haven't felt comfortable talking about, but from what we've heard, one one of the terrorists made a comment threatening the Schnee heir, and the mother reacted violently, so she was cut down."

The mental image of Adam covered in blood, after attacking a ball, came to mind.

"Oh, I can see it in your face, dear." The woman noted. "It's so horrific, isn't it? Cut down like an animal by an animal, like that."

Blake shuffled in discomfort, and the woman looked at her with pity in her eyes.

"Oh, my apologies, dear. This is a hard topic to talk about. I won't force you to think about it."

Blake nodded. "Thanks." She muttered softly, before pulling out the remainder of her money. "I don't suppose I have enough here to buy anything?"

The woman looked at it, then shook her head. "Sorry, dear. Not quiet."

"I see." Blake said. "Sorry for wasting your time."

"It's no problem, dear." The woman said. "The fact that you appreciated my work is enough. Have a nice night, dear."

Blake nodded, then walked away.

As she travelled through the city, ignoring police pursuit as she headed towards the escape tunnel, her thoughts were in turmoil.

She'd known that Adam had ended up killing somebody, but she'd assumed it was a combat thing, at least. A Schnee? Sure, they were trained to a degree, but a woman at a celebration wouldn't have been prepared for combat. Likely wouldn't have had a weapon on her, either. She'd be more of a civilian than a combatant.

Adam had killed someone who he hadn't _needed_ to kill. He'd given her a talk on the necessity of killing in the past, and even if he hadn't pushed her when she disagreed, his point had been killing _in combat_ , that holding back to spare a life was a mistake that could cost yours. But if he'd taken a life of someone who he'd have such an advantage over...

...She didn't want to think about it. Part of her wanted to pretend the problem wasn't there at all. She'd been doing that for ages, after all, and it'd been the right choice every time. She'd objected to the shift from peaceful protest to violent riots, but then it had started working. Violent riots shifted to intentional terrorist actions, and she'd objected, but then it started working. People started giving ground, giving Faunus better conditions to discourage them from joining the White Fang and avoid becoming target.

Both times, she hid her discomfort, and the White Fang ended up closer to it's goals through the actions she'd objected.

Going through the secret tunnel, shedding the white jacket and cap and leaving them behind in the process, Blake wondered if this new level of escalation would also work.

Where was the line? At what point did doing the wrong thing for the right reasons add more wrong than right? The Schnee family was frowned on, even among human communities, but it was almost specifically the father of the family who was spoken of in hushed insults. She'd never heard anything specific about his wife, beyond being his wife and being a Schnee. Blake had always hated the company more than the family, so she was able to see the family as a separate entity, to a degree.

Adam may have caused pain to the company, but he had done so by taking a mother from a family. A potentially loving mother, at that, if she had lost her temper when her daughter was threatened.

Was that just going to be the new level of acceptable? Something initially morally reprehensible, decried by the media and the people, making it seem like the White Fang had reached a whole new low, but in six months time something that was considered normal?

Was that the path she was walking now?

...Damn it. She didn't have time to think about this now. She could get back to it later.

 **It doesn't take Blake long to get to the base, and the evacuation is set up while Blake herself is allowed to sleep. By the time she awakens in the morning, a large group of White Fang members, in addition to some of their family members, were all on an airship leaving Atlas.**

 **What does Blake do when she awakens?**

 **[X] She needed to talk to Adam. Killing a woman at a ball, even if it was a Schnee... She wasn't comfortable with that.**

 **[X] She couldn't face Adam like this. She needed to get her thoughts in order first. In the meantime...**

 **-[X] She should talk to that with bat Faunus woman. Get another viewpoint on this, from someone evidently more okay with killing.**

 **-[X] Maybe she could try conversing with the wolf Faunus girl. Someone closer to her own age might put things in perspective.**

 **-[X] She'd get her thoughts in order easily by distracting herself for a bit. Try reading a book.**

 **-[X] It'd probably be best to do something vaguely constructive. Talk to a weaponsmith, ask about possible weapon upgrades.**


	22. Rough Justice

**[X] She couldn't face Adam like this. She needed to get her thoughts in order first. In the meantime...**

 **-[X] Maybe she could try conversing with the wolf Faunus girl. Someone closer to her own age might put things in perspective.**

It was strange, riding in an airship. Blake would never get used to it. Sure, she'd been in one a few times, but it was always strange. There was always a slight movement that felt different to standing on the ground. Or maybe it was just that the airship the White Fang was using was an older one. The stabilisers were probably significantly below the peak condition. She'd never gotten a chance to fly in anything that wasn't outdated, so maybe it wasn't as much of a problem with those.

Some people seemed to have less of a problem with it than others. There were people walking the corridors of the airships easily enough, and Blake paused for a moment as she saw a bunch of kids running around the hallway.

...Some of the White Fang members in the hotel had families, didn't they? Kids, like this, who couldn't be left behind. What would have been waiting for them otherwise? If children had their parents fleeing the law, anything ties their parents had to society either also running or shunning them for terrorist links, likely forced to end up in some sort of foster home where they were all too likely to end up someplace terrible, what kind of conditions would they be in?

Not anything good, that was for sure.

But it wasn't much better now. Ripped away from any life they knew back in Atlas, on the run, and if there was any sort of resource issue, they'd be the ones the worst off.

Would they be in this situation if Adam hadn't escalated to murdering a member of the Schnee family? Would they be worse off back in Atlas if the White Fang never existed at all?

Why couldn't there be an easy answer to any of this?

As she wandered the airship, Blake happened to stumble across a familiar face.

"Oh!" Said a chirpy voice. "It's you!"

Blake turned to the voice, and came face to face with the teenage wolfgirl.

"It's..." The wolf trailed off. "Uh... The person from the hotel! Whose name... I _didn't_ forget, I totally remember-"

"That's odd." Blake noted. "I never mentioned my name."

The wolf girl blinked. "...Of course! I knew that."

"My name is Blake." The cat Faunus supplied.

"Hi Blake!" She chirped. Then, she blinked. "...Wait, are you that girl who knows Mister Taurus?"

"I do know Adam, yes." Blake replied.

The girl seemed to sweat. "F-First name basis..." She stuttered. "I-I'm sorry if I was rude, ma'am! I didn't know, ma'am!"

Blake blinked at the suddenly saluting girl. "...You realise I'm not a high-rank member of the White Fang, right?"

The wolf girl looked confused. "...But you know Mister Taurus?"

"He won't kill you for using your first name." Blake noted.

"But he's scary." The wolf replied timidly.

This was going nowhere. "I don't think I caught your name."

The wolf girl blinked. "Ah! Right! My name's Sienna, can I ask yours?"

Blake looked at her for a moment.

"...Sorry, reflex."

Blake was very seriously considering going to talk to someone else about this. Like Adam. Or maybe she'd walk out of the airship, back to Atlas, and talk about her terrorism problems at great length with the first man in uniform she saw.

But no, she was being unfair. And someone like this might have an... Interesting... Perspective.

"So, Sienna." Blake said. "Can we talk for a bit?"

"Sure, boss lad-"

"I'm not your boss." Blake interrupted.

"Sorry." The wolf girl said again. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I wanted to know what you think of how the White Fang have been doing." Blake replied.

Sienna thought on that for a moment.

"Well, I'm not the smartest." She said. "And I know there's been a bit of arguing over it. But I think the White Fang is still doing the right thing?"

"Even though we're getting more violent?" Blake asked.

The wolf girl thought on that for a bit more. "Well... It's sad that people are dying in the fighting, but it's only fair, right? People talk about justice all the time, and the important thing is that it's fair. Humans cause the deaths of Faunus, and so Faunus cause the deaths of Humans."

Blake considered that for a moment. "Humans don't go out of their way to kill Faunus, though. Even if the conditions in, say, a Schnee mine are terrible on Faunus workers, it's not like they were designed to kill as many Faunus as possible."

"They may as well have been." Sienna noted bitterly. "They just want money, they don't care about the people. They don't care when reports say that the mines are unsafe, because fixing it would cost money, and the miners go home and complain and their daughter overhears them complaining how someone's going to get hurt one day, and then one day they don't come back from work and the daughter turns on the television to see that there was a collapse in the mines and she doesn't remember if she ever got to say goodbye because her parents always left for work before she woke up and-"

Sienna paused, and Blake kept a concerned eye on her for a moment.

"Intent doesn't matter!" Sienna chirped again, suddenly shifting her vocal tone to be higher pitched. "Human doesn't care about Faunus, Faunus dies so Human can have what they want. Faunus doesn't care about Human, Human dies so that Faunus can get what they want. Fair's fair."

"...Okay..." Blake noted. She wasn't going to be touching _that_ topic again without a twenty-foot pole.

"Why do you ask, Blake?" Sienna continued.

"I've just been thinking." The cat Faunus continued. "We've been getting more violent, and every time the White Fang escalates, I just feel a bit conflicted about it. I wanted to see if it was just me."

Sienna rested her hand on her chin in thought. "Hm... Well, you've seen all those old movies, right? With the lone renegade hero being handsome and charming while handsomely stopping a corrupt authority figure?"

"...Yes?" Blake asked, not sure where Sienna was going with it.

"Well, the hero's always the good guy there." Sienna said. "Even if he kills a lot of people. And I don't think it's just because the hero is shirtless and has abs. It's the same reason why people let prisons be a thing."

"There's a few trains of thought behind prisons that I've heard." Blake said. "Which one are you talking about?"

Sienna bit her lip. "Maybe I'm explaining this wrong... I think my dad once said there were four reasons people were locked up? Something like incapacitate, deterrence, retribution and rehabilitation? The fourth one doesn't really work here, but do you get what I mean?"

"I think so." Blake replied. "People in jail can't keep committing crimes, and the threat of jail stops people from committing crimes?"

"Yeah!" Sienna chirped. "We're doing the same thing! Just, uh, permanently. A dead person can't keep running a company with bad conditions for Faunus, and the threat of being killed has meant that some businesses have started making things better. Plus, you know, the revenge."

"Vengeance isn't justice, though." Blake objected.

"Isn't it?" Sienna asked. "I mean, that's one of the four reasons. Person did bad thing to society, so society makes them suffer. And that's, like, the main bit of justice. If you look back to old times, justice was basically you doing something bad to a person, so they made something bad happen to you. It's a lot more complicated now, though."

"What about innocent people?" Blake asked. "There's civilians caught up in attacks sometimes. Sometimes even Faunus."

"Same with courts." Sienna replied. "I mean, there are false positives all the time. People get a fine or thrown in jail, then a few years later someone finds more evidence proving they were innocent the whole time. It's like that. Just, uh, more permanent."

"So." Blake summed up. "You think that it's fair for the White Fang to be violent because our targets make people suffer, and it's okay that good people get hurt sometimes because the law hurts good people sometimes."

"Uh huh." Sienna nodded. "It's simple. In the end, justice is just when you see something bad being done to you and yours, and do bad to someone else to make up for it."

"That's a rather simple way of looking at things." Blake noted.

"The world's a rather simple place." Sienna replied. "People try to complicate it, but really, life's a lot easier if you just don't think too hard on it."

Blake nodded. "But-"

She was cut off, by a sudden alarm blaring. Red light shone from all the ceilings, flashing around as a siren called.

"What's going on?" Sienna asked, looking around.

Before there was a reply, an explosion rocked the airship. Blake heard screaming.

"Come on." The cat Faunus said. "That's the evacuation signal. Try and get to the ejection points."

Nodding, Sienna followed Blake as the cat Faunus broke into a run.

The airship shook at another explosion, and Blake was thrown into a wall. Getting to her feet, Blake moved to keep running, but another explosion knocked her back down. And then another. They came faster and faster, until there was a constant ringing of explosions all around.

Adapting to the constantly shaking airship, Blake ran through the corridor, jumping up on a wall to run along it as she noticed more people running around close by. Sienna followed her, but immediately slipped off the wall and struggled to keep her footing.

Letting her fall behind, Blake continued running ahead, trying to get to the launch pods nearby. Once she got to them, she'd be able to make sure as many people got away as possible, and hopefully get away herself.

A sudden melodic tone filled the sky, almost soothing despite the situation, and there was a sudden sound of tearing metal near the escape pods.

As Blake rounded the corner and came to where the path to the escape pods _should_ be, there was nothing. Molten steel dripped from the first part of the path, but it was as if a large segment of the airship had just been torn away.

Visible in the blue sky past the molten metal was a black shape in the distance, flying ahead of the airship amongst attempts of suppresive fire, but it was already rounding back.

It's angle was such that it wouldn't be long before it hit the other escape pods.

More and more guns started firing at the flying black thing, and it changed course slightly, going for the cannons over the people evacuating. But if it had already gone after one, it wouldn't be long before the attacker came around again.

Turning, Blake started running towards the other side of the airship.

"Blake?" Asked Sienna, as the cat Faunus ran past. "What about-"

"They're gone." Blake interrupted. "We need to get to the other side before it's attacked too."

Sienna looked at Blake, then nodded. Turning towards the wall, the wolf Faunus took out her dagger and used it to cut her palm.

Then, with a sudden shout, Sienna started sprinting, the bloodstained tip of her dagger held before her. As she ran, the dagger extended, increasing in size significantly until it hit the wall. As the blood at the tip was forced through, the wall expanded just enough to allow Sienna to pass, and Blake immedately dashed after her. Just in time, as it turns out, as the wall sealed itself again just as Sienna passed, and Blake barely got through in time.

The hallway was conspicuously empty as the two ran through. But naturally it was. By this point, people had probably gotten to the closest escape pod, and anyone who had run to the escape pods back on the other side of the ship would have been...

Blake forced the thought out of her mind, as she continued sprinting to keep pace with Sienna. Suddenly, a larger explosion rocked the ship, and the two were flung to the side. Sienna's dagger shrunk back down to it's normal size, and the airship started tilting.

A voice started shouting over the intercom.

"Mayday, mayday!" It screamed. "Engine has taken heavy damage! Abandon ship! Repeat, Abando-"

Another explosion rang out, and the intercom cut out, replaced by static.

"W-What's happening?" Sienna asked.

Blake didn't look t her, as she adjusted her footing to fit with how the airship was now at an angle. "I don't know."

Now running on the walls, which were rather diagonal but now closer to being horizontal than the floor used to be, the two girls continued running. Blake looked around, trying to remember the path, then ran at what was now closer to being a wall and ran up it, jumping to the other 'wall' after a few moments to keep up the momentum.

A scraping sound echoed through the hall, and Blake ran on, reaching where the side of the ship should have been. There was still a significant run to where the escape pods where, but-

But this area of the ship was burning.

The sky was distantly visible through several walls, all of which had gaping holes in them left by the echoing explosions that continued to ring out. Blake watched for a moment in mute horror, noticing how the smell of burning flesh filled the air in this room, but continued running.

Dashing through, Blake pulled out Gambol Shroud, tightened the ribbon on her arm, and threw it.

"Hold on." Blake shouted, pausing for a moment to let Sienna grab her, before she jumped. Pulling on Gambol Shroud as she did so, Blake propelled the two of them to just under where the weapon has caught, at which point running up the wall was trivial.

Whoever was manning the controls must have been fighting the damaged engines to keep the airship under control, because the orientation was slowly shifting back into something normal. Still tilted heavily, reflecting the ship going down, but under control.

"Anyone else here?" A voice screamed in the distance.

"We are!" Sienna replied. "Hold on!"

Running towards the voice, Blake and Sienna suddenly felt heat behind them as another explosion went off. The two of them were thrown to the floor by the explosive force, and Blake could feel super heated shrapnel bouncing off her Aura. Looking up, she saw a brief vision of the attacking beast ripping into steel, tearing away at the ship, before another melodic song went out. The airship near the beast froze, and when the beast tore away, much more of the airship was torn off than it's size and grip would have implied.

"We have to go." Blake said to Sienna, helping the wolf Faunus to her feet. Sienna briefly looked back at the falling metal.

"Sienna, let's go-"

"They're screaming, Blake." The wolf girl said. Blake listened closely for a moment, and could hear distant screams, but tuned them out as fast as she heard them.

"We can't do anything for them." Blake insisted. "Let's get out of here, worry about other people later."

"But-"

"Just listen to me." Blake insisted. "Whatever that thing is, it's been tearing through the airship metal like crazy. This thing was salvaged from the Atlas military, and even if it's outdated, the material is the same. This is the sort of metal made to withstand hours of bombardment from Grimm and rogue ships, and that thing is tearing through it like it's _nothing_. We can't do anything."

Sienna looked at Blake, starting to tear up. "But..."

Blake closed her eyes. "Don't think about them." Blake advised. "Things are so much easier when you don't think, right?"

Sienna nodded, trying to hold back a sob. Blake tugged at her hand and pulled her forward, continuing a run.

What the hell was that thing? Some unknown type of Grimm? A new Atlas weapon? A wyvern? Something else?

Running through the falling airship some more, Blake and Sienna came across a familiar man with the ears of a bear.

"You two." He said, not bothering with introductions. "Look, here."

The man held his hand in front of them, and clicked his fingers.

"My Semblance is Illusions." He said. "Not personal ones, but ones that affect everything except the people I put them on. There's an pod bay up ahead, I had to hide it so the beast didn't get it, but it's still looking. Have you seen anyone else?"

"No." Sienna replied softly.

"Then we need to move." He said. "None of the escape pods have launched yet, because that'll break the illusion. Get in one, and we can get these people out of here. You hear me?"

"Yes." Sienna replied.

"Try to split up." The man continued. "If things go wrong, being in the same pod means more people die in a malfunction. Now go!"

Blake nodded, running along. Sienna's hand fell out of hers as they ran to where the escape pods where, and they split up when they each identified an empty one.

"I'll see you soon, Blake." Sienna tried to be cheerful, but the morose tone ruined it.

"We're making it out of here." Blake insisted, as she went into her escape pod.

It was small, circular, and without any real means of propulsion. It was heavily armoured and design to get to the ground without causing harm to the ones inside. The doors were treated glass, as hard as steel but transparent, and in the case of the doors landing wrong the escape pods were designed to collapse so that any part of it could be exited.

A moment passed after Blake got in hers, before it dropped. Looking out the window, she saw all of them dropping at the same time, leaving the airship behind.

They were close to the ground, Blake noted. The airship had fallen a lot. It was lucky she had found it when she had, if Blake had waited much longer, the burning airship would have crashed and she would have been trapped within it-

An explosion erupted throughout the sky, tearing it asunder, and Blake saw one of the escape pods in the distance disappear in a ball of flame. Her eyes wide, she immediately reached for the doors on her, even as she saw a burning corpse fall from the destroyed escape pod, and another laund pod went up in flames as Blake tried to pry hers open.

A third went up by the time Blake had gotten hers open, all of them growing closer over time. Climbing out of hers, Blake looked around, looking for a place she could jump to and land with minimal harm.

A second too late, she saw the fireball approaching, and even as she jumped away, she felt the explosion tear through her Aura and send her to the ground.

For a moment, there was only pain.

 **Of course, Blake Belladonna survives this, but it will take her a moment to regain consciousness. What's the first thing she notices when she does so?**

 **[X] A crying child, desperately begging her to wake up.**

 **[X] Sienna's scream in the distance.**

 **[X] A dark shadow covering her momentarily, and a mighty gust of wind as it shifted.**


	23. Four

**[X] Sienna's scream in the distance.**

There was a scream, Blake noticed, as she blearily regained consciousness. Her mind was moving too slow, it was too hard to think.

Why would someone be screaming?

Shaking her head and struggling to get her eyes open, Blake looked around.

There was a lot of fire, all over the place. Lots of metal, broken and melted, too. Almost like-

Her brain finally turned on enough for Blake to remember what was going on, and the shock of it woke her up faster than anything.

The airship-

Trying to stand up, Blake stumbled almost immediately as her leg refused to move. Looking back, the girl saw that the leg in question was pinned under broken iron.

Pinned, but not crushed.

Hadn't she been hit by the fireball? Been hurt bad enough to lose consciousness? Shouldn't she be out of Aura, then? But if her leg was fine...

Concentrating for a moment, Blake realised her Aura was still intact. It was at breaking point, from the fall, but she was _barely_ holding on. But then...

Spinning as much as she could with her leg pinned, Blake pushed against the metal for a moment. Then, when she failed to get enough leverage on it, she tried punching it instead, putting dent after dent in it until she was able to make a gap just big enough to pull her leg out from under.

Prying it out, Blake's eyes briefly widened at the sight.

It was covered in burns.

Her Aura should have stopped the burns. That's part of why it was so useful, you don't have to worry about burns or frostbite or any sort of environmental damage until your Aura was gone. But her Aura had held through the blast somehow, but it hadn't stopped the burns?

She patted her leg for a moment, and felt nothing. No pain, no feeling, nothing. Had her nerves burnt out?

Looking herself over, Blake realised her leg wasn't the only thing burnt. The back of her arm was charred, and she couldn't see where the burn ended.

How...

How bad had she been hurt?

Feeling some sweat on her brow, Blake reached to wipe her forehead, and immediately pulled her hand away while hissing in pain.

Her face. There were burns on her face. Why hadn't she felt it earlier?

Was she in shock? Was that why she wasn't feeling anything?

Another scream ripped through the sky, and Blake nearly slapped herself. What the hell was wrong with her, sitting here being all concerned about _herself_ when she'd _heard_ the scream?

Scrambling to her feet, Blake looked around for Gambol Shroud, but saw that the ribbon on her arm had burnt away. Her weapon was...

Gone. Somewhere.

Forget it, then. She could find it after going to help Sienna.

Running as fast as she can, Blake looked around for the source.

There was a lot of burning steel around. Too much. Had the airship had more of it torn out if after she lost consciousness?

No matter. She already knew that most of the people on that airship were going to die. People just trying to do the right thing, children brought along because their parents were here too, potentially hundreds dead because of this.

All she could do was focus on getting as many people out of this alive as possible.

Running around the molten steel to prevent damaging her pathetically low Aura, Blake headed towards the direction of the scream. She'd be able to help Sienna somehow, she'd figure out how to help when she knew why Sienna was screaming.

The scent of burning flesh filled the air, and Blake did her best to ignore it. Even when she passed by another broken escape pod, with two burning corpses within. One of which was smaller, held in the other's arm.

Blake did her best not to think about the implications, as she ran.

Eventually, as she closed in, running up a hill, she heard the sound of clashing steel, and cries of pain. As she reached the top of the hill and looked down, Blake set her eyes on a perfectly circular battlefield surrounded by debris, with two figures within.

The first was Sienna, panting in exhaustion and desperately clutching at the bloody stump where her right arm used to be. In her left, she held her dagger, and she was covered in blood. Despite that, she didn't seem to be actively bleeding from any of her many wounds, and seemed to be doing her best to ignore the burns lining her.

Meanwhile, standing before Sienna, perfectly unharmed, was a brown-haired girl dressed in green. Her hair was pulled back in twintails, but with two other braids of hair hanging down the front of her face. She wore a cape around her, and wore claws around her hands.

Blake didn't know what drew her eyes to it, but she spotted, despite the difference, the numerals on the woman's head.

IV

Four.

"Like a cornered animal." The girl sang. "So vicious, aren't you, little wolf? Why don't you cry out some more, try to call the rest of your pack."

In a flash of speed, the girl was behind Sienna, and with a casual slash of her hand, sent the wolf Faunus falling to the ground.

"S-Stop..." Sienna begged softly. "P-Please..."

"Stop?" The girl in green asked. "Why should I stop? For a murderer? A terrorist? A bad guy like you? Why do you deserve mercy?"

Sienna tried to push herself up with her left hand, but Four kicked her in the side. The wolf Faunus coughed blood, as she was sent flying. Four dashed after her, and Sienna screamed.

For a moment, the blood she had coughed hovered in the air. Then, all at once, the earth buckled, pushing away every speck of dust of small rock which was between Sienna and the blood, momentarily blinding the girl in green. Then, the sudden rushing wind pushed at the girl, who took a step back to brace herself.

"This again?" The girl asked. "Well, I suppose it was a bit much for a feral beast to show some creativit-"

She got no further, as Blake moved into action. Moving as fast as she could, Blake threw a steel pole at the woman, trying not to wince at the feeling of molten metal. The girl's head tilted as she heard the sound of rapidly shifting air, and casually backhanded the projectile without looking at it.

She turned to look at the source, but Blake was already running. Jumping down into the battlefield, Blake kicked downwards. A second before the blow connected, she left a shadow behind, repositioning herself behind the woman to punch at her.

Her fist collided with her own shadow, and Blake's eyes widened. Then, feeling her Aura shatter, she doubled over in pain.

"Another survivor." The girl noted. "And Gabriella was saying I was wasting my time. Where is she, anyway, she should be back by now..."

Casually flinging Blake to the side, the woman sent her flying into the melting steel at the edge of the battlefield. Blake somehow managed to stop herself before she hit any of it, but the impact on the ground was enough to knock the wind out of her, and she heard her leg make a snapping sound as she landed on it wrong.

Breathing heavily, Blake tried to see through the pain, and looked back over at the girl in green.

"One at a time." She said to herself, as she approached Sienna's body. As Blake watched, she put a foot on Sienna's neck.

The cat Faunus tried to crawl forward, but a blinding pain in her legs made her wince, stopping her for a moment too long. The girl in green pressed down with her foot, and Blake her a snap, and a crunch.

"And justice is done." The girl in green said. "And now for the other."

Turning towards Blake, the girl with the roman numeral on her head approached.

"You..." Blake wheezed. "Monster..."

The green girl smiled. "Me? No, I'm the hero here, terrorist. The hammer of justice that ends your murderous rampage. The brave saviour who faces off against the wild beast, breaks it in and shows the villagers how easily it dies."

"You..." Blake tried to continue.

"Destroyed your airship?" The girl asked. "Of course I did. I couldn't let the bad guys get away, not when One was so angry at you."

"There were... Children..."

"Oh, child soldiers, how monstrous of you." The girl in green replied. "It'll be so sad making sure they can't be used as weapons against society, but all wild animals need to be put down before they can be a threat."

Blake glared at the girl, hatred in her eyes, burning like a fire. Taking her silence as a cue to continue, the green girl walked onward, approaching Blake rapidly.

"Some difficult choices have to be made in the name of justice." The girl in green said. "But this burden I gladly take. My ever thought and action are pure and unclouded, for I walk the path of justice-"

"Is that what you tell yourself?"

The green in girl paused at the voice, and turned around. She stepped to the side slightly as she did so, revealing the speaker to Blake.

Adam Taurus approached with his sword drawn, an expression of hatred marring his face from what was visible past his mask.

"Oh, I know you. "The girl in green noted. "You're exactly who I came here for. You're the monster that attacked the ball. One's going to be so glad when I confirm your death-"

"So that's why." Adam interrupted. "All of this is because you want this One person to appreciate you?"

The girl in green froze. "What are you-"

"Or maybe that's just your justification." Adam continued. "You said your thoughts were unclouded, right after saying you would have to make a difficult choice. No regret in your voice. Even if it wasn't for someone, you'd be out here killing, wouldn't you?"

"Stop i-"

"You're sick." Adam continued. "Projecting it on your victims to justify to yourself that you don't enjoy the slaughter, that it's for a good cause. But without the cause, you'd continue to kill."

The girl in green was shaking in anger.

"But why?" Adam continued. "Is it for pleasure? Does killing make you feel good? Do you do it to feel better about yourself?"

" _Shut up!"_ The girl screamed, dashing at Adam faster than Blake could track. Her metal claws clashed with Adam's sword, and Adam continued.

"That got a reaction." He noted. "I'm on the right track? But you didn't react to being asked if you get pleasure out of it, so it's more that you're trying to not feel bad, isn't it?"

The girl threw Adam's sword away, making him struggle to keep his grip, then kicked him in the chest. Adam backflipped to bleed off momentum, then immediately began parrying blow after blow of wild swing.

"You could have killed either of those girls in a hearbeat." He continued. "But you took your time. Enjoying being the hero. Enjoying the feeling of being stronger than them, better tha-"

" _Shut your fucking mouth!"_ The girl screamed, a roundhouse kick hitting Adam in the head and making him stumble. "What would you fucking know about me, you fucking animal! You're not even fucking human, you're less than that! Subhuman scum! And you think you can understand me? Get in my fucking head! You don't even know what a fucking Intoner _is_ , you piece of shit! I don't need to take this from you! I don't need to take this from _anyone_ , _especially_ not a _fucking wild beast!"_

"I'm a wild beast?" Adam asked, as he struggled to keep her at bay. "You seem to be the one losing control."

" _Fuck-_ "

The girl in green brought her knee upwards, hitting Adam into the air. Her right claw grabbed his sword, pulling it away from his arm as her left sliced at his arm below his elbow, completely ignoring his Aura as it left him armless.

"- ** _You!_** "

Twisting the grip of Adam's sword, Four stabbed upwards into his chest, right where his heart would be.

"You think you can talk good shit, you asshole? Well fuck you! You're fucking _nothing_ to me! Not a fucking challenge, not a fucking name, not even a fucking _worm_ beneath me!"

As Adam fell to the ground, the woman in green kicked down, forcing him down fasted, and began grinding her heel through his chest, right above his lung.

"You think you're so _smart_ , don't you?" She asked, as she stamped down and twisted. "You think you're _so_ much better than me, looking so fucking smug with that grin on your face like you've figured it out. Well guess what, retard? You're _dying_ now! You're fucking dead, and I'm going to go home and by this time tomorrow I won't even _remember you fucking existed_!"

With a crunch, her foot went through Adam's chest, and he cried out in pain. Blood feel from his mouth, and Blake could feel herself tearing up more.

Spinning Adam over with her foot, the woman pulled his sword out of him and started stabbing at his stomach.

"Does it hurt?" She asked. "I hope it fucking hurts. I hope you're in fucking _agony_ while I kill you, shithog! I hope this makes you cry, makes you remember how much life fucking _sucks_ , make you wish you chose not to be born so you didn't meet _me!"_

Twisting the sword and pulling it out of Adam's side when it had earlier stabbed through his gut, the girl stopped speaking, and just started screaming instead. Putting a foot either side of him, the woman held the sword high, and stabbed it through his face. His mask broke in two, and he stopped moving.

Blake's breathing stilled, and the girl breathed heavily from a moment as she stood over Adam's corpse. Looking at the sight, the cat Faunus couldn't believe her eyes.

Adam was dead. _Adam_. The strongest person Blake had ever met, one of the strongest in the White Fang, someone who never seemed particularly challenged in a fight. Torn down and butchered like a pig by someone who never even learnt his name.

How could he die so easily?

After a moment, the girl standing above Adam pulled away from him, leaving his sword impaled through his face, and turned away.

"Gabriella!" She shouted. "Time to go!"

A moment passed, and then a flapping sound filled the air. Dust blew as gusts of wind flew it away, and within a few moments, a shadow fell over the battlefield.

"About time!" Snapped a voice, and Blake paused as she saw a great black beast standing over the girl in green. "Are you done with your creepy little murder trip?"

"Don't call it murder." The girl replied. "Murder is the act of a criminal, and everything I've done today is just."

Blake ignored her words, looking at the beast. It was black, but it lacked the mask of a Grimm. And Grimm didn't talk. But...

There was no denying it. If that thing wasn't a Grimm, then this woman had somehow gone and found an honest to god, actual living breathing legend.

After all, it'd been hundreds of years since the last time a Dragon had been seen.

"I'll call it whatever I want to call it." The dragon replied. "It wasn't enough for you to take down the airship and have me shoot the escape pods, _no_ , you had to go hunt down every last survivor too!"

"Justice is without restraint." The girl replied. "I couldn't risk a serious criminal getting away."

"You got that without restraint part down, I heard you laughing your head off while you were riding me."

"Why can't I enjoy killing the bad guys?" The girl in green asked. "It's not like these are people, Gabriella. They're murderers, the worst of the worst, and it's not like they started out human anyway."

"Yeah yeah, I heard you before." Gabriella replied, rolling her eyes. "Are we going now or what? If we're not home before sunset, I'm the one who has to explain it all to One."

"Of course." The girl replied. "I'm done here. Lay down."

The dragon gave a sigh, then rested down. "There you go, Four. Hurry up, already. You probably can't smell the difference, but I can't stand the smell of burnt Faunus."

"They are rather filthy." Four agreed, as she popped up.

"Yes." Gabriella stated, as it straightened up and prepared to fly. "I was referring to their filth. Not the fact that their bones are poison to dragon and I can smell that when you burn them. Clearly."

It flapped it's wings, and took off.

Watching it go for a moment, Blake watched in a combination of fear and owe, before it flew out of sight and she allowed herself to breath easy.

Crawling forward, Blake got to her knees, examining her body. She wasn't injured too severely anywhere, but had some minor cuts. Nothing too pressing.

Crawling forward, feeling the pain of the burns on her body where her nerves hadn't given out and all the little bruises, Blake tried to stand before the pain in her leg discouraged her.

...Right. She heard that snap.

Letting it hang behind her as she kept crawling, Blake reached Adam, and looked at him for a moment.

Picking up the broken pieces of his mask, Blake locked at them for a moment, before pocketing them and turning to the sword in his head.

He deserved better than this. Even if he wasn't the best person, he's always tried to do what he thought was best. Looked out for her. Cared for her. Did his best.

Even if he was a killer, even if he's killed a civilian before, he cared enough to go out of his way to spare someone just because Blake was there. So even if he wasn't the best, he'd tried for her.

And now he was dead. And none of that mattered.

Looking up, Blake looked over at Sienna's corpse. She'd only known Sienna for ten minutes or so, but she'd seemed like a happy person. A cheerful one, one who wore her heart on her sleeve. She'd given Blake her views on things so easily, and even if she'd stopped herself, her small tirade regarding the Schnee mines reflected a damaged person under all that. Someone who Blake felt could've been good to get along with, sometimes.

And now she was dead, and Blake would never get to know her better.

Pulling the sword out of Adam's head, Blake reached for and removed his scabbard, putting the sword away. Then, she straightened her bad leg as best she could, and started thinking.

What were you meant to do with a broken leg? Let it heal? Her Aura would hopefully help as much as it could, but she needed to give it the best chance she could. So maybe if she got some sort of pole or something, tied some cloth to her leg and around the pole to keep it straight...

...She could worry about that later. She needed to rest first, recover some Aura so she didn't accidentally make things worse. Hope that there were more survivors, maybe, and that one would find her. She could hear a sobbing sound in the distance, so there were people nearby, at least...

And probably some Grimm as well. Anyone who survived must be _miserable_ , and injured to boot. Easy prey.

Clutching Adam's weapon, the only gun she had on her, Blake kept an eye out, ready to shoot anything that approached her. As she did so, she looked around, and again took in the aftermath of the battle.

Broken corpses. The scent of burning flesh. Broken metal, burning metal, ruins of something great. All torn away by one person, and a dragon who didn't even seem to like her that much. Dead children, dead people, people trying to do their best cut down, all because they'd gone too far in doing the right thing.

Closing her eyes to try and blink away the tears, Blake thought back to what Adam's killer had said as she left, asked herself a question.

"How is this justice?"

* * *

"End recording." The woman said, as she wrote the words on her notes. Then, setting the pen down, she looked over them. "It'll be a while before we go back to Blake, won't it?"

"A while, yes." The old man noted. "I think it's safe to say that the projected path without Intoner interference won't be happening."

"That's sad." The woman noted. "Didn't you predict that she'd end up going to Beacon? Like Yang and the Schnee heiress and all of the other people of interest you noted back then?"

"I don't think that's likely to happen at this point." The old man replied. "Miss Belladonna's fate seems to have taken a turn to drive her towards a darker path. We can only hope that hatred doesn't consume her, as it has so many before her."

The woman was silent, so the old man continued. "Let's return to Miss Xiao Long. She's returning to the Kingdom of Vale sooner than she expected, isn't she?"

The young woman nodded. "Yeah. Apparently-"

 **[X] "Winter finally got word of her Mother's death, and wanted to return to Atlas immediately. Do you think she ever got to say goodbye?"**

 **[X] "It was originally intended as just a short stop, to drop off Two's orphans, and Yang got the bad news when she got withing the borders."**


	24. Friends and Family

**[X] "Winter finally got word of her Mother's death, and wanted to return to Atlas immediately. Do you think she ever got to say goodbye?"'**

"I'm fine." Yang insisted, contorting her arm around to show how well healed it was. "See? Nothing wrong with it."

Sensing an opportunity, Yang flexed her muscles. Already looking at her arm, Blast stared for a moment, nodding in appreciation.

Piran ignored the two. "Are you sure, Yang?" He asked. "I'd hate for you to walk out injured and come back even more injured as a result."

Yang looked at him. "Look, we _both_ know I'm going to come back injured eventually, so why does it matter?"

Piran sighed. "I'm not getting through to you at all, am I?"

"Look, we both know you're as _piran_ to be a big hero-"

"You've made that pun before." Piran interrupted.

Yang frowned. "I have? Damn, been too sore to think up new ones I guess..."

"If I stop fussing, will you stop making puns?"

Yang considered it. "I won't make puns around you if you're not fussing around me."

"Deal." Piran agreed.

"Great!" Yang declared, budging past them. "I'll see you later, then!"

Running down the hallway, the yellow-haired teen looked for the exit to the airship. She slowed momentarily, as she passed a door with the Undine standing before it, and walked calmly past to avoid setting off either the murder water spirit or the crazy murder child the Undine was guarding.

...Okay, maybe she was being unfair on the kid, she had it rough.

Undine was still a freak murderer who fed people to the kid, but she was also fully aware that co-operating with Winter was getting the girl access to a better life and that stepping out of line would end with Winter kicking her ass.

Once she walked past the water spirit thingy, Yang put the Undine and her near death experience at the hands of a little girl out of her mind, and went outside.

Once she did, she took a moment to take in the sight of the village the airship had landed in.

There was a nearby building that Winter had hired out with her seemingly infinite money to house the orphans. Yang had snuck out to see it earlier while she was still a bit injured, while Winter and the others went back to the burnt-down village to find anyone who survived somehow and belongings of the survivors. Help them get back on their feet by finding all their old stuff.

There was a park near said building, but which was where most people hung out, apparently. Two apparently spent some time with the crazy girl as well, but right now, she was in the park with Cent, Ren, Nora and a bunch of orphans.

Walking into the park, Yang took a moment to appreciate the sight before her.

There was a big rope suspended across the walkway, a fierce game of tug-o-war in the process. On one side, Nora led a group of small children, pulling at the rope with all their might, doing their best to tug it even an inch, just an inch, to victory.

On the other side, the rope was tied to Two's waist, as she ate an ice cream. Ooh, Neapolitan, and with the perfect ratio of fifty-percent chocolate, thirty-percent strawberry, and twenty-percent vanilla.

Whoever was responsible for changing the tub-sold Neapolitan ice cream to be mostly vanilla had a special place in hell waiting for them.

Pushing aside her odd but delicious tangent, Yang took a moment to look at the tug-o-war again. With a burst of speed, Nora tugged, and was able to pull Two forward half an inch. In response, the blue-haired woman shuffled backwards slightly, pulling the rope and pulling Nora off her feet in the process.

"Oof!" The orange-haired girl exclaimed, as she scrambled to her feet. Then, she turned to the kids.

"Never give up!" Nora declared. "She may take our lives, but she'll never take our free snacks!"

There was a cheer, and sitting on the park bench supervising, Ren covered his face with his palm. Sitting next to him, Cent waved a little flag with Two's name on it.

Walking around the rope to the bench, Yang looked over at Cent.

"Nice flag." She noted.

"Thanks." Cent said, waving it a little higher. "Hey, did you know a survey last month amongst people from ages eleven to nineteen found that most teenagers considered waving a flag to be the most fun thing a person can do?"

"That doesn't seem right." Yang replied. "I mean, flag waving, ahead of watching paint dry and grass grow?"

"Second and third." Cent shrugged.

"Pull faster!" Nora declared. "We cannot allow this foul sorceress to take all the free ice cream! Pull harder, for glory!"

Two made a satisfied sound as she bit into her scope. Then she gasped, and put hand on her head.

"Ow, ow, brainfreeze." She moaned.

"Now's our chance!" A young voice declared, and Nora looked over at the bench.

"Ren! Now!"

Standing up and walking over to Nora, Ren reached into his pocket and pulled out a taser of some sort. Then, he jabbed it into Nora's arm.

The electricity flowed around Nora, with much more cackling around then a handheld taser should be capable of producing, and when she pulled along with the kids, she pulled the rope tense.

There was a sound, and Yang looked over at the middle of the rope. Which was beginning to fray. Two noticed this as well, so she jumped slightly. Without her feet on the ground, the force Nora put on the rope made her stumble forward, pulling her forward just far enough to lose.

"Victory!" Nora declared, making a V with her fingers next to her face. "Bring forth the victory treats!"

Ren pocketed his taser again, and went off towards the building.

"Aw..." Two said, in what was obvious fake-sadness. "I lost..."

"There there." Cent said, seemingly completely genuine. "I'll go get the Post-Defeat Cheer-Me-Up-With-Pancakes."

Nora paused, turning to Cent.

"The what now?"

"Pancakes."

Nora looked on in consideration, then quickly threw the rope at Two.

"Oh no! I lost! What a terrible, terrible thing. Now I must eat the delicious-"

"Ren didn't cook them." Cent noted.

Yang didn't see anyone move, but somehow, Nora was holding the rope again.

"Victory!"

Yang laughed a bit, and the children and orphans all looked at her. Yang spotted the fox-girl she had saved back at the burning village in the crowd, looking at her in admiration, and gave the group a smile and a thumbs up.

"So, Yang." Two said, as she plopped down on the bench next to the brawler. "We haven't really talked much, have we?"

"Not really." Yang admitted. "Which is a shame, because you seem like a pretty cool person."

Two frowned, putting a hand on her forehead to measure her temperature. "But- _Oh_ , you mean like I'm a fun person, don't you?"

"That's what I meant, yes." Yang replied. "Where are you from, anyway? You don't look like someone who grew up outside the Kingdoms."

"Oh, I did." Two replied. "I'm just really strong so I never lost fights, and I'm a really good cook so I can eat _anything_."

"Anything?" Yang asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Did you know that Grimm actually tastes pretty good if you season it right?" Two asked. "I mean, it's a pain keeping them alive while you cook them but weak enough that they don't eat you while you eat them, but if you pull it off right, they taste _great_. Like, really, you'd think they were made to be eaten."

Yang laughed.

"Did I say something funny?" Two asked.

Yang blinked. "...You're not joking."

"No."

"...Huh." Yang pondered. "Now I'm curious, what _does_ Grimm taste like? Misery? Sadness?"

"Nah, it's..." Two trailed off. "I can't really describe it, but you'd think they taste bad, but it all depends on how well you season them."

"How are you meant to eat a living Grimm anyway?" Yang asked.

"You gotta skin it first." Two instructed. "Which means you need to pick a weak one, the stronger ones are too tough and usually heal or something. It's hard to tell when you've done that because Grimm are made of shadows and hate, but once you can bite it without hurting your teeth, it's ready for being boiled."

"How did you even find this out?" Yang asked. "I mean, who'd think of cooking Grimm?"

"My sister." Two explained. "Three's always asking herself question about stuff. We were little kids and she wanted to know how the Grimm worked, so she did a bunch of tests. Like, she sang our Song to them to because she thought they were silent inside or something, she wanted to know what they were made of so she took them apart, stuff like that. She said she wanted to see how Grimm were made but One told her that was a bad idea so she didn't."

"I was going to say that your sister sounds like some mad scientist from a cheap horror movie." Yang noted. "But I guess she has some- _one_ she listens to."

Two nodded.

"...That was a pun."

Two blinked, then laughed. "Oh. Someone. Some One. She listens to someone called One. You're funny."

"How many sisters do you have, anyway?" Yang asked. "I mean, I'm noticing a pattern here.

"There's six of us!" Two chirped. "One, Two- Me- Three, Four, Five-"

"Six?" Yang asked.

Two shook her head. "No, Zero. We go Zero to Five."

"What are they like?" Yang asked.

Two thought on it for a moment.

"Five's kinda simple." She noted. "She likes doing things that make her happy. She eats a lot and does fun things and once she was overage she started-"

Two blushed, looking away from the kids. "Y-Y'know, stuff. A lot."

Yang blinked, then smiled. Prime teasing material acquired.

"You mean handholding?" She asked. "Cuddling? Does she, dare I say, does she say the 'L' word a lot?"

Two blushed. "Y-You know what I mean! A-And you're too young for those kinds of thoughts! Banish all lewdness from your mind! I have to be the responsible adult about this!"

Yang laughed. "Well, okay then. What about Four?"

"She's so nice." Two said, forgetting her embarrassment completely. "She looks up to One and Zero so much! I mean, we all do, but Four gets sadder than anyone when she thinks she let them down. She can get really angry sometimes, but then she feels bad and apologies and she tries her best."

"Sounds nice."

Two nodded. "And then there's Three. She sleeps a lot. She's so lazy! Always snoozing around, and then when she wakes up she just plays with dolls a lot. Well, she's allowed to. She's my little sister, she can do what she wants. But then she makes Four upset by being lazy and Four has to work a lot to make things easier when Three should be doing it."

"You sound like you're criticising her." Yang noted.

"Maybe a little bit." Two admitted. "I think Three's just too smart, and because she's smart she thinks too much and she gets tired because she's thinking instead of staying awake. She means well, at least."

"Why don't you tell me about Two?" Yang asked, with a smirk.

The blue-haired girl paused in consideration. "Two's a happy person. But she's also scared a lot that if she gets too happy, bad things will happen. Like when she was happy, then Zero went missing and all of her sisters got seperate- Hey!"

Yang chuckled. "Sorry. Seeing you pout when you realise people were teasing you is just too funny."

"And cute!" A voice echoed from the distance. Yang frowned.

"How did Cent hear us from all the way over there-"

"And then there's One." Two interrupted. "One's, like, the _best_! She's always helping everyone, trying to make everyone happy. When I'm being an idiot she tells me what I'm doing wrong, if Three's going too far with her tests One stops her, she tries to make Four feel useful so she's happier, and when Five's getting too irresponsible One tries to set her straight. She's, like, the _ultimate_ big sister!"

"She sounds like a great person." Yang admitted.

"Yeah!" Two declared. "And, like, even when things are hard and everyone else is worried about what we're doing, One's always seeing so much more than us! When we're worried about getting through hard times, we're too distracted by it. Even when One's worrying about us, she dreams big! You know what she said to me, once?"

"No?" Yang asked.

"We were going to a village." Two said. "And when we got there, it was being attacked by Grimm. One got us away, looked out while we hid, and I was getting worried because she looked so sad. So she saw me being sad because she was being sad, and she promises me, one day, she'd make a plan and not let the Grimm hurt anyone ever again."

Yang paused. "A lot of people say that. It's not like you can get rid of the Grimm, thou-"

"One promised." Two interrupted, her voice dead serious. "She never makes a promise she can't keep."

"...You really believe in her, then?" Yang asked, still not sure.

It wasn't uncommon to hear people saying they would put an end to the Grimm. Especially young children. Ruby used to talk about being the best hero who stopped all the monsters, but she grew out of it when she was six. She still wanted to be the best hero, but she was realistic enough to know that stopping all Grimm forever was an impossible dream. It was like saying you'd beat death and never let anyone die.

Hiding her disbelief, in someone Two seemed to believe with all her heart, Yang moved on. "What about your last sister? Zero?"

Two's smile faded. "Zero... I haven't seen her in a long time."

Yang looked at Two. "What happened?"

"We don't know." Two admitted. "A little bit before we all got separated and I met Cent, Zero just kinda went missing one day. One seemed like she knew something we didn't, but she was quiet and sad."

"What about before that?" Yang asked. "What was Zero like?"

"Oh, she was a kinda sad person." Two admitted. "She was the oldest of us. Like, Five used to tease her about being an old crone, though she wasn't really that old. When we were kids, Zero would be super protective. Beat up people who were mean to Four, helped One learn to fight, all sorts of things. Then she went missing and everything was sad."

"I can see why." Yang noted, as she looked over at the children, where Nora and Cent were handing out ice cream cones. "I have a sister too, you know."

"Oh?"

"Her name's Ruby." Yang went on. "She's a little bit younger then me. She's the nicest person I've ever met. A bit weird with weapons, but nice."

Two smiled. "Weird with weapons? How bad could she be?"

"I once looked over her shoulder when she was 'Designing Weapons,' and she was drawing a picture of her marrying a scythe."

Two laughed. "Your sister sounds weird."

"And your sisters don't?" Yang asked, chuckling.

There were footsteps towards the entry of the park, and Yang turned to look over at Winter approaching.

"Hello, ma'am." Yang greets. "I'm not doing anything wro-"

Then she saw the expression on Winter's face and stopped.

She was doing her best to look professional and serious, but Yang could see it. The slightly shocked expression, as if refusing to believe something could happen. Eyes reddened slightly, as if she was crying. Something had happened.

"Is something wrong? Yang asked.

Winter breathed for a moment.

"Nothing to concern yourself over." She claimed. "Merely some personal news. We may need to cut this trip short."

Yang looked at her. "Winter, if there's a problem, you can talk about it-"

"Thank you, Yang." Winter interrupted. "But really, it's nothing. I've merely... There's been a death in the family, and I need to go home for the funeral."

Yang's eyes widened. "I'm so sorry-"

"Don't worry about it." Winter insisted. "This has nothing to do with you. I'm sorry you are unable to get the full experience of this trip."

"Don't apologise." Yang insisted. "Family is important, I understand."

Winter smiled softly, then turned to Two.

"I can give you a ride to Vale." She said. "The orphans, too. After that, I need to return to Atlas, and I won't be able to organise homes for them there, but I could have a company branch look after you until I can prepare something in Atlas."

"Thanks." Two said. "Hey, are you sure you're okay?"

Winter ignored the question. "We'll leave tonight." She insisted. "Give the orphans time to move their belongings to the airship."

Two nodded, and stood to go talk to Cent about it.

Yang looked after her for a moment, and then back to Winter.

"Winter." She said. "I know you said it wasn't anything to concern myself with, but... Well, it's family. You shouldn't bottle this stuff up. If you get too stressed, I'm willing to talk."

"You're to kind, Yang." Winter replied. "Especially with someone several years your elder."

"Age doesn't matter." Yang replied. "Nobody ever takes loss well, and if I can help, I will."

Winter smiled. "I'll keep that in mind."

And with that, she left.

 **It'll take a while for the airship to get to Vale. What does Yang do in the meantime?**

 **** **[X] Blast and Piran wanted to do a training exercise, in which they take it in turns defending a room with help of automated defences.  
** **[X] Ren wanted to see how he compared to someone who had been trained in a Kingdom, to measure his chances of getting into Beacon.  
** **[X] Yang notices the Undine and the girl in her care interacting with another orphan, and watches to make sure nothing bad happens.**

 **When she returns to Vale, Yang will get some bad news. How does she receive it?**

 **[X] When the airship lands, her father is waiting, and Yang can tell there's a problem immediately from the expression on his face.  
** **[X] Uncle Qrow magically appears on the airship a few hours away from the city, and completely ignores the chance to annoy Winter.  
** **[X] She receives a call on her scroll, from a number she doesn't recognise.**


	25. Lucky

**[X] Blast and Piran wanted to do a training exercise, in which they take it in turns defending a room with help of automated defences.**  
 **[X] Uncle Qrow magically appears on the airship a few hours away from the city, and completely ignores the chance to annoy Winter.**

"Ten minute rounds?" Blast asked. "It'll give us enough time to get our Aura back between rounds so we all get a chance to be the defender by the time we get back."

"Sound good." Piran confirmed.

"Fine by me." Yang confirmed. "Who's first, though?"

"I volunteer Blast." Piran suggested.

"That's not what volunteering means-"

"He needs to learn how to sit put and focus on an objective." Piran continued, ignoring Blast's objections.

"He does have a problem with that." Yang nodded.

"You guys are jerks." Blast complained, with a smile. "Right, so I'm first? Gimme a moment to get it set up."

Walking into the training room, Yang heard the whirring of gears as machines began to move.

"Just how much does this airship cost?" Yang wondered. "There's a big medical bay, enough rooms for a dozen people, a training room that's both huge and can be modified, a kitchen..."

"Well, Winter's a Schnee." Piran noted. "So if I had to guess? Picture what your parents make in a year. Multiply that by the longer estimates of a Hunter's life expectancy, discounting those killed in battle. You're now looking at what it'd cost to have the engines repaired."

"That might be going a bit far." Yang replied.

"You're right." Piran admitted. "But it's still-"

Yang interrupted him to finish her joke. "What my dad makes in a dozen decades is probably _way_ too little to be on a Schnee's radar."

Piran paused, and looked at her. "Ha ha. Very funny."

"I try." Yang shrugged. "So, if Blast done in there yet?"

"Just a moment!" Blast shouted, as the whirring came to a stop. There was silence for a moment, before a muffled song started playing from within the room.

"What is he-"

Piran was interrupted by the door to the training room opening. "Get started."

The two went into the room, checking their weapons as they did so, and looked around.

"He made a maze." Piran noted. "I can't believe he actually made a maze."

Yang looked it over, an idea coming to her.

"You take the left wall, I take the right?" Piran suggested.

Yang held up a hand. "Hold on, I have an idea. This stuff's not as tough as the airship armour, right?"

"Rig-"

Yang didn't let him finish, running up to a wall and punching into it. As she did so, she fired her weapon, blasting a hole in the metal. The muffled music got slightly less muffled as she did so.

"Found him." Yang said, looking through the hole. "Looks like there's no real entrance to this area in here either."

"That took less time then expected." Blast called from beyond the wall, still muffled. "I was hoping the lack of defences would give it away that the maze was a fake."

Piran sighed. "I can't even find fault with this, it was clever."

Yang nodded, stepping through the hole on the wall, then immediately froze at a beeping sound.

"Oh good." Said Blast, as the song continues to play. "You found the landmines."

Yang considered it for a moment, the jumped back while shooting down, propelling herself back while the landmine detonated. The explosive force stung a little, but Yang dodged most of it.

As she landed, Yang cocked Ember Celica, and fired as fast as she could. Past the broken wall, the mines detonated as they were shot at.

Piran rushed in as the detonations stopped, stepping into the room past the wall. Yang followed, and they looked around.

Then up.

Suspended to the ceiling was a smaller room, transparent in nature, with Blast inside it, dancing.

"What is he doing?" Piran asked.

Continuing his dance, Blast twirled his gun and fired in a random direction. The bullet bounced around, before exiting out a small gap in the wall and hitting something behind Yang.

There was a beeping sound, and Yang looked back just in time to see a gun turret come online.

Rolling to the side as it opened fire, Yang returned fire, destroying the turret. As she did so, it exploded, shooting fire outwards to cover the room.

"How do we even get up there? Yang wondered. "He's probably set the walls to explode if we try to run up them."

In response, Piran looked up in consideration. "What was his Semblance again? Something about forcing him into fights but also letting him bullshit his way through them?"

"Something like that." Yang replied.

Nodding, Piran fired upwards at random, trying to hit one of the gaps in the wall. One bullet went through, just small enough to pass through, and expanding as it went through the gap. Blast continued dancing, his head ducking underneath the bullet as he did so.

"He's just showing off." Piran noted. "He heard me say this was to teach him how to focus on an objective and now he's not taking it seriously at all."

In response, Blast started echoing the song he was listening to. "Na na na na na na na na..."

"Do you recognise that song?" Yang asked, as she remembered it herself. She knew what the punchline to this joke was.

"Not really. Why?"

"-t up." Blast continued. "Baby, give it up."

Piran looked up at him.

"...Really?" He asked. "Isn't it a bit too soon to start with the mocking songs? You haven't even tried anything."

"That was funnier in my head." Blast admitted, still dancing. "I was thinking that you guys would be trying and failing when the music got to the chorus. Not sitting around like a bunch of lemons. Well, Plan B then."

Taking a step back, Blast fell down a hole in the floor of his platform, and fired upwards multiple times as he did so.

The bullets went back up into the room and ricocheted off the walls a few times, before hitting a panel on the roof. A moment later, as Yang closed in to punch him, she heard the mechanical whirring of the rooms walls around her.

A wall folded between Yang and Blast, and Yang tried to smash through it, only to find another wall behind it. Repeating the process twice more, Yang finally got through the walls, only for smoke to bellow out of the room.

"Oh, come on." Yang complained, as the smoke expanded and covered the room completely. "You know what, forget Blast, I'm going back to the roo-"

She looked upwards, and saw that the semi-transparent room up there was gone.

"...Of course." She sighed. "Piran, what are you doi-"

There was a wall where Piran used to be, and before Yang could approach it, the smoke covered her vision again. The whirring continued, as the walls once again moved around her.

Yang sighed. "Really? We're doing it like this? Fine then. You know what beats sneaking and confusion?"

Hitting her fists together, Yang fired both sides of Ember Celica at once, causing a small explosion and flaring her Aura at the same time. The flash of light didn't make anything in the smoke more visible, but she heard crumpling metal as the walls around her buckled under the impact.

"Can't hide if everything's on fire." Yang continued, flaring her Aura more to burn up anything around her she could.

There was the sound of a bullet hitting the roof, and the damaged metal moving wall next to Yang groaned, as the wall collapsed. Looking towards the sound, Yang fired upwards, hitting a hole through the wall and letting it fall around her.

Firing in the direction the wall used to be, Yang watched the light in the smoke fade, before another bullet fired and it exploded.

"Found you." Yang declared, running in that direction. Firing randomly as she twirled around, Yang heard metal crushing until she got to the furthest wall of the training area, made of metal she couldn't punch through.

She paused, and listened around. Above her was a track of sorts, and a moment after spotting it, Yang noticed a whirring of a machine. Firing at it, Yang watched the training turret fall, then frowned, looking around.

There was a sudden repetitive beeping from the roof, as the sprinklers turned on, extinguishing Yang's flames.

A moment later, there was a rush of wind, as Yang felt something suddenly smash into the wall next to her. The wind pushed the smoke away, and she saw a giant pillar next to her, which immediately began shrinking.

The smoke cleared enough for Yang to see Blast running on the shrinking pillar, right at Piran, before punching forward as Piran spun another pillar into him. The pillar shattered, partially, but enough of it remained that Blast was thrown into the wall.

By sheer coincidence, another gun turret was whizzing past on the track on the wall as this happened, catching on one of the belts Blast wore around his chest and pulling him out of the way of the pillar before it could trap him against the wall. He disappeared back into the smoke.

"New plan." Piran declared, before throwing a bunch of small sticks and expanding them all into pillars at once. The smoke cleared pretty much instantly, as the room suddenly filled with giant stone pillars.

Blast suddenly jumped up from behind a pillar, shot at Yang, then hid away before Yang could fire back. The girl with yellow chair chased him, into the pillars. She leaped from one pillar to another, bouncing the direction Blast had disappeared in, before suddenly being shot in the back.

Blast, clinging to the side of the pillar with his gun pointing besides him, laughed. Then he stopped, as his grip suddenly slipped just in time to fall out of the path of Yang's return fire. The pillar detonated, and as several fist-sized rocks fell at Blast, he pointed his gun at them, ready to pull his usual bullshit of firing into a storm of projectiles and deflecting all of them somehow.

Then an alarm went off, and Blast was surprised enough at it that he forgot to fire.

"Ow." He said, as a rock hit him in the face. "What the-"

A robotic voice spoke over the intercom of the room. "Room has been invaded. Attacker Victory."

Blast blinked. "What?"

The pillars started shrinking, one by one.

"You forgot to guard the room." Piran called. "You got distracted, so I went in and won."

"Damn it." Blast swore.

"If it helps, kid, that was an alright performance."

Everyone turned in shock at the voice, which was unfamiliar to all but Yang.

"Uncle Qrow?" Yang asked. "When did you get here? ...How did you get here?"

"There's a lot of questions we shouldn't think too hard about." Qrow dismissed, waving his hand. "We heard you were on the way back, and since you hadn't responded to the message yet,we assumed it didn't go through while you were outside the Kingdoms. Thought we should tell you in person."

"Tell me what in person?"

Qrow turned for the door. "Follow me, we'll get some privacy."

Frowning in confusion and feeling somewhat anxious as to what would be important enough that it couldn't wait for her to get home, Yang followed him, leaving Blast and Piran with the clean-up.

Qrow walked down the hallway with uncharacteristic surety in his steps, the walk of a man who wasn't even remotely drunk. Yang followed him, until they got to an isolated room somewhere.

"What happened? Yang asked.

Qrow sighed. "I wish there was an easier way to break it to ya, kid. Ruby's gone missing."

Eyes widening, Yang gulped. "W-What?"

"It happened a few days ago." Qrow explained. "We were out shopping for weapon parts, I was showing her the best places in the mall, and we were wrapping up. I let her go to the usual cookie place, but she ran ahead a bit and then the crowd gathered and I lost sight of her."

"How's that lead to her going missing?" Yang asked. "You knew where she was going-"

"There was some sort of commotion at the cookie shop." Qrow continued. "Don't know what exactly. Nobody really noticed anything happening up until a certain point. When I got there, everything was fine, but then everything just kinda shattered a bit and Ruby was gone."

Yang stared for a moment, breathing heavily.

Ruby was missing? Something had happened, she wasn't there, and now Ruby was gone? She could be in danger, she could be hurt, and Yang wasn't anywhere nearby to stop it or help or-

"Calm down." Qrow said suddenly, putting a hand on Yang's shoulder. "We've got some leads, we just don't have her yet."

Yang tried to control her breathing.

This was fine. Everything would be fine.

"W-What do we know?" She stuttered out, trying to keep calm.

"Video surveillance cut out just before Ruby disappeared." Qrow said. "But before that, it caught something. Ruby was eating a cookie, then some kid knocked her aside and took it off her. Ruby objected and tried to get it back, the kid ran to some blonde woman, and then the camera's cut out. Everyone says the woman took the cookie off the kid and gave it to Ruby, but none of those three were there after the whole shattering thing happened."

Yang tried to keep her breathing calm, but it was still rather panicky. "How can Ruby just go missing without _anyone_ knowing?"

"It has to be a Semblance of some sort." Qrow said. "Some sort of... I dunno, an illusion or something. I got in contact with some friends to find out more about blondie and the kid, and neither of them are in any official records. Given that they were inside the Kingdoms, that probably means they got in through less than legal means, so your father's been hunting down any criminal groups who could get people inside Vale and set them up without them appearing in the public record."

"Don't we know anything else?" Yang asked.

"I'm sorry." Qrow said. "That's all we have."

Ruby was missing, nobody knew what was going on, nobody knew who was responsible, nobody knew why-

"How'd you get here?" Yang asked, her voice quiet.

Qrow blinked at the sudden change of topic, but realised where she was going with it almost instantly. "It's not something I can teach to you before the airship gets back to Vale on it's own ti-"

"Then carry me when you go back, get us home so I can start looking for my siste-"

"It's not a multiple person thing!" Qrow objected. "Heck, the only reason I can carry my weapon during it is because of some loophole in the process, I can't take another person with me-"

Yang felt her hand curl into a fist, so she twirled around and punched the wall before she lost her temper. There was a thud, as a dent appeared in the airship's steel, and there was silence for a moment, broken only by Yang's breathing.

"...I'm sorry, Yang." Qrow said. "I really wish I could tell you more. I wish I could tell you _why_ , at least. But don't worry. We'll find her-"

"How do I help?" Yang asked.

Qrow blinked. "Huh?"

"Don't try to leave me out of this. I don't care if I have to skip school for a while, I'm helping find Ruby and you can't stop me."

"I understand." Qrow replied.

"I said don't try t- Wait, wha?"

Qrow looked at her. "You'd just feel terrible if your father and I tried to make you ignore the problem, and then you'd sneak off and try to resolve it yourself anyway."

Yang breathed heavier for a moment.

"If she's hurt..." Yang muttered. "I wasn't there, and-"

"Don't." Qrow interrupted. "Whatever you're going to say, stop it. Ruby went missing on my watch, you not being there wouldn't have changed anything. I can't stop you being upset, but it's not your fault."

If only words worked so well, Yang thought to herself. She'd promised herself years ago, after nearly getting Ruby hurt looking for her mother, that she wouldn't let anything happen to Ruby again. And now Ruby was gone and she had no idea what she could even do to start fixing the problem.

Just because it wasn't her fault didn't make her feel less like she failed her sister.

 **The airship lands in time, and there's still hours in the day. What does Yang do before she grows too tired?**

 **[X] Investigates the mall where Ruby disappeared. If she can find just one clue as to what was going on...**  
 **[X] Tried to distract herself by helping Two move the orphans and their belongings. Though Two might notice Yang acting depressed...**  
 **[X] Qrow offered to distract her by teaching her the start of a dangerous trick that he was going to save until she graduated from Beacon.**


	26. Touch of Wilderness

**[X] Qrow offered to distract her by teaching her the start of a dangerous trick that he was going to save until she graduated from Beacon.**

Yang was the first off the airship when it landed, leaving without even saying goodbye to anyone. She'd be able to talk to them later, and she had more important things on her mind at that moment.

Maybe people would think she was rude because of it, but at that moment, Yang was beyond caring. Her mind was in overdrive, repeating what Qrow had told her over and over again. Ruby was missing, the person most likely responsible didn't seem to exist as far as any authorities knew, and nobody knew what was happening.

It was a good thing she came back to the Kingdoms when she did, if she learnt of this whole thing when she got a message that took a few days to arrive and wasn't anywhere near Vale at the time, she'd probably do something dumb like try to run back on her own. At least now, she was here so she could see there was nothing she could do.

Actually, maybe that would have been better, trying to return to Vale would have at least given her something to do to feel like she was working on fixing the problem.

Damn it, why was it so hard to not feel useless? She thought she'd gotten used to it after several years of not being able to track down her mother, but apparently not.

"Yang?"

The girl turned to Qrow when he spoke, suddenly realising that she'd gone into autopilot enough to have completely forgotten he was even there.

"Look, I'm not the best with the who consoling people thing." Qrow continued. "But, well, I know you feel bad. But try to think about something else, if you can. If you give it some time without moping, you might be able to keep a clearer head regarding the issue, not feel like shit as much."

Usually, Yang would've made a joke about how her father would kill her uncle for using language like that around her. But at the moment, she was too occupied with her moping.

"I know that sounds hard." Qrow began. "Especially since your father would actually murder you if I went for my usual solution of getting sad people drunk. Not to mention I have no idea if you're a sad drunk or an angry drunk, the former of which would be bad for you and the latter bad for... Well, everyone. But I do have another idea."

"Punching things?" Yang suggested.

"...That can be the Plan B." Qrow noted. "Anything that sounds like one of Raven's ideas is always Plan B at best. Nah, I'm talking about something that might be constructive, later."

"What is it?" Yang asked.

"I can't just tell you that." Qrow replied. "It's traditional that anyone learning this little trick has to deal with an annoying mentor who doesn't bother explaining anything. That, and I'd like the be able to keep you guessing on it for a bit."

"This sounds very unappealing."

"I dunno." Qrow replied. "The teacher in the pair always seems to enjoy it."

Yang looked at him for a moment, a small smile on her face. "This is just you looking for an excuse to make me do nonsense for a while, isn't it? I'm going to have to chase chickens for a while or something."

"No, no." Qrow dismissed. "I've been told that my teacher was full of it when she said it was an important step, and then laughed at for believing her in the first place."

"You sound kinda bitter about this." Yang noted.

"I may have been looking forward to this for a long time." Qrow admitted. "I was saving it until you got through Beacon for various reasons, but with the, uh, current situation..."

Yang's smile faded. Qrow's banter had distracted her, but then he slipped up and mentioned what she was being distracted from again.

"Alright." Qrow clapped before Yang could return to her moping properly. "Let's get you home. Your father will be out for a bit, so we have time before he comes home and yells at me for starting early."

"Why would he be yelling?" Yang asked. "Is this something dangerous?"

"Not really." Qrow replied. "It's just that messing up the learning is... Well, let me put it like this. You know how you can use your Aura to start burning up?"

"Yes?" Yang replied, not entirely sure where this was going.

"How much do you value the ability to _not_ be on fire?"

Yang paused. "I... Suppose it would suck. Like, are we talking constantly burning a little and heating people up when I touch them, or setting things on fire when I'm too close?"

"The former on a good day, the latter when you get angry."

Yang winced. "Ah. Yeah, that'd be pretty bad."

Qrow nodded. "Exactly. Now, once you get past a certain point, if you're not exactly sure what you're doing, you can mess up just a little and suddenly need to live in a fire extinguisher. I, uh, won't be helping you get that far. I'm just going to establish the basics of what you need to do first."

"Can I at least get a hint at what I'm learning here?" Yang asked.

"It's a nice utility thing." Qrow dismissed. "Like, you asked how I got to the airship when it was in the air?"

"Huh." Yang replied. "Well, I'm totally not gonna look up obscure transportation skills anyone can lear-"

"Go ahead, you won't find anything." Qrow replied. "It's a family secret. Nobody outside of it's ever been able to figure it out."

"Drat." Yang noted.

"I know, I guess you'll just have to give it your full attention until you figure it out the hard way, won't you?"

Yang smiled. "Alright then, old man. How do I start?"

Qrow looked around. "Well, it's about five minutes until we get home. Let's take a detour, go find a good place with lots of trees. Being out in nature works best for this."

Yang nodded. "Alright then, lead the way."

Qrow walked away, going off the path. Yang took a moment to look around, noting that they'd gotten close to the house in the walk. She'd been too distracted to note where they were walking. Which was nice because, well-

And the distraction had failed again.

Sighing to herself and doing her best to concentrate on what Qrow had said over the fact that _Ruby was gone and she was useless to stop it she couldn't do anything how is she supposed to keep Ruby safe if she couldn't even-_

Don't think about it.

Picking up the pace as she followed her uncle, Yang decided to focus more on the situation at ha-

...Where did Qrow go?

Looking around, Yang frowned as she noticed that there was a lot more trees behind her than she has passed. She should be, like, a few metres from the path. Why was there desert around her as far as you can see.

"Uncle Qrow?" Yang called. "Um, the path's not where I left it!"

There was a cawing sound, and Yang noticed a black bird of some kind sitting in a tree above her.

Yang tilted her head as she looked at it, and the bird mimicked her movements.

"Is that a crow or a raven..." Yang wondered momentarily, before hearing another cawing sound behind her. Turning, she saw another black bird sitting on the tree, glaring daggers at the first. They were different in appearance, slightly, enough to make Yang think there was definitely one crow and one raven amongst them.

"Okay..." Yang muttered. "Uncle Qrow, where are y-"

Two more loud caws resounded, and the two birds flew at one another, talons extended and beaks snapping at each other's throats. In a flurry of black feathers, they fought for a time, and Yang promptly decided this was none of her business.

Pacing away from the birds, Yang went in the direction she thought she had seen Qrow in last. He still needed to explain what the hell was happening. Why the walkway was gone and why the trees seemed to be identical.

Was this some kind of trick? An optical illusion, a trick of the eyes?

...Was this going to be some trippy symbolic thing? A journey of self discovery that was all in her head or something like that?

Yang looked around briefly, and saw a clearing in the trees, with a red rose and silver coin in the middle.

Yep, this was all symbolism.

"So none of this is actually happening, is it?" Yang asked.

There was the sound of clicking fingers, and suddenly Yang was looking at her uncle's hand.

"You're no fun." He complained. "I didn't even get to the confusing bits."

"Um." Yang began, articulating her point clearly and thoroughly.

"I assume you want an explanation?" Qrow asked. "Well, you passed the first test. The fact that you were able to look beyond the face value of things means you have the potential at least."

"Does that mean I get to figure out what any of that was?"

"Family secret." Qrow replied. "I'll tell you more later, but most families of established Hunters and Aura users usually have a pattern to their abilities. All the Schnee have summonings, but most others have less strong stuff. The Branwen family has had abilities relating to being in touch of nature for a while."

Yang nodded. "I think I get it so far."

"Well, basically what that was, was creating a feedback with your soul. Basically, it was a dream, but it only worked because the trees and animals here are ones you've been around for a while. Basically, your Aura's learned to recognise them to a degree, so it was able to use them to start showing you a reflection of your soul."

"So, my soul is a forest with a crow fighting a raven and a rose and a silver coin lying around."

"Well, the only actually important thing was the rose and coin." Qrow replied. "But before I can explain anymore, I have to ask. Do you remember what colour the sky was?"

"...Blue."

Qrow shook his head. "Never mind, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

"I have no idea what's going on anymore." Yang said.

"I know." Qrow replied. "It's _great_."

"Screw you, old man." Yang huffed. She took a step away, then stumbled.

When did she get so tired?

"How long have we been out here?" She asked.

"Two hours." Qrow replied. "Magic stuff tends to be like that, though."

Yang blinked. "Magic?"

Qrow's eyes widened. "Uh... No, I said Mad Tricks. Not magic."

Yang looked at him.

"...Not buying it?"

"What does magic even mean in this context?" Yang asked, ignoring his point completely.

"Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves again." Qrow sighed. "That answer's something that'll take way too long to explain. For now, just forget about it."

Yang gave him another look, which was ruined by a yawn.

"...Fine." She muttered. "But you're going to have to explain everything to me one day."

"Yang, please, half the fun of this is going to be seeing you react to some of these surprises, why should I tell you anything that would give you a clue as to how anything works or why?"

"Hate you so much." Yang replied, with another yawn.

"I know." Qrow replied. "Now come on, it's well past your bed time and if you sleep before your father gets home I can pretend to be a responsible adult for a few hours before you can disprove my story."

Yang didn't remember much after that. She didn't remember walking all the way home or going to her bed. In fact, it wasn't until she realised she was dreaming that it occurred to her that she must have gotten home and fallen asleep. Or maybe she fell asleep and Uncle Qrow was carrying her.

Still, she really wished she was dreaming of anything else. Because she'd had this dream before. Walking through the woods, pulling a cart behind her, hearing and seeing the sinister signs around her but unable to force herself to react in them in any way.

Closing her eyes and trying not to imagine what was happening too much, Yang let the dream continue on to be a familiar nightmare. She'd get to the destination, be attacked by Grimm, and depending on her mental state, either just relive the memory of her uncle saving her, or watch the nightmare continue the logical path of what would had happened without his interference.

Given what was going on in the waking world, she was hoping she woke up sometime soon.

 **It's still several weeks before Yang is supposed to be back at school. She had plenty of free time until then, but until she found Ruby, she wouldn't be doing anything else with it. What does Yang do first to try and look?**

 **[X] There's a club nearby that was less than legal, but not provably illegal in activity. See if anyone there would have any relevant information.**  
 **[X] Uncle Qrow had friends with resources, and might have information that could help. Visit them with him, see what they had.**  
 **[X] Dust shop robberies had been on the rise recently. If she hung out at one at night, she might be able to catch some crooks and interrogate them.**  
 **[X] Her father had reported Ruby missing, but spreading the word a bit might lead to someone coming in with information**


	27. Who's That Girl

**[X] There's a club nearby that was less than legal, but not provably illegal in activity. See if anyone there would have any relevant information.**

The sun was down when Yang walked into the club. Late enough that there was a ton of people in the building, so the odds of someone here having information was a lot higher than it would have been in the middle of the day.

Looking over the place, Yang paused her gaze momentarily at the sight of the DJ's bear mask, but shrugged and moved on. She had more important things to do.

She'd heard of this place before. She wasn't the most well behaved teenager, and had occasionally gone to parties while telling her father she was studying with a classmate. There was meant to be one organised here last year, but then the club was being investigated be the authorities for...

Something or other.

Nothing had been proven enough to hold up in court, so the place was still running, but it was basically an open secret that this place had criminal connections. All that could really be proven was that the people in management had friends who had broken the law, but that wasn't illegal in and of itself.

Yang hadn't really wanted to mention how much she knew about her place to her father, because that would lead to questions regarding how she found out about this place and she didn't want to reveal she had friends who came here and invited her to a party here once. Her social life required her to be able to leave the house unsupervised, which didn't work well with her father knowing what kind of people she occasionally met with.

But that didn't matter right now. If Hei Xiong knew anything about Ruby, Yang needed that information. Fuck her social life, this was bigger than that.

As she walked down the steps and towards the bar, Yang kept her arms in plain view, so everyone could see Ember Celica on her wrists. That should discourage anyone looking for a fight, knowing she was armed and would be ready to fire before them. But she also had to maintain a casual demeanour, to make it look like she wasn't looking for a fight herself.

It'd probably be easier just to punch everyone until people started talking. She might be worried about how she compared to everyone here, but her father was an experienced Hunter and was only a minute away. Far enough away to not make anyone nervous, close enough to kick ass if needed.

Looking around, Yang kept an eye out for Hei Xiong. Known better as Junior, which he encouraged to remind people that he was the youngest in his family and there were worse threats who'd step in if you messed with him. His status was an interesting one, in that he deliberately downplayed himself to authorities so that people wouldn't come to him often. He did know a lot more than he let on, Yang had heard, and if there was the slightest chance he knew something, Yang wanted to have a good conversation with him.

Walking by a club bouncer, Yang paused, and gave him a smile.

"Hey, handsome." She began. "I don't suppose you'd know where Junior is?"

The bouncer looked at her. More specifically, at Ember Celica.

"Who wants to know?"

Yang shrugged. "Just a girl with a few questions."

The large man looked at her suspiciously, then seemed to reach a decision.

"By the bar over there." He said, pointing towards the man.. "Near the girls in white and red."

Yang looked over where the bodyguard was pointing, and smiled.

"Thanks, man." She waved at him as she left, heading towards the man between the two teenagers pointed out.

Walked towards them, Yang took a moment to think about how to open up her questioning. After a moment, she reached into her pocket, and pulled out a few notes of money.

It wasn't much, but it might be enough to get him talking. If he needed more, she had her card on her somewhere too.

"Junior, right?" Yang asked, as she walked up to the three people she had been pointed towards. The man in the middle finished his drink, then turned to her. He looked for a moment, then spoke.

"Aren't you a bit young to be in here?" He asked. "If you want some drinks, I don't know what you've heard, but I don't help minors get boo-"

"No, I'm not interested in that." Yang interrupted. "I hear you know things."

"What kind of things?" Junior asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm looking for someone." Yang replied. "Little girl, about this high. Black hair with red highlights, fond of weapons. Silver eyes. Sound familiar?"

"Never met anyone with silver eyes before." Junior replied. "Pretty sure I'd remember it."

"Then maybe you could help me confirm a few things that might help me find her?" Yang asked, as she walked to the bar bench Junior was resting on. Slapping her money on the counter next to him, she continued. "I might be able to make it worth your time."

Looking over her shoulder, the girl in white looked down at the money. "Is that all you can afford? That's five minutes of work for us, girl."

"Then surely it can buy me five minutes of his time." Yang replied.

Junior considered it for a moment, before taking the money.

"This isn't buying you answers." He said, waving the money in front of Yang. "If it's something that needs to be bought, I'll need more."

"That's fine." Yang replied. "But I want to know. Have you heard the name Ruby Rose?"

"Just on the news." Junior replied. "Missing person report. Don't know anything else. She's the one you're looking for?"

"She disappeared in the middle of a shopping mall." Yang replied. "She was there one second, then there was a shattering and she was done. Do you know anything about that?"

"Nope." Junior replied. "News to me."

"The cameras on the scene cut out before she disappeared." Yang continued. "Before that, they caught her talking to a blonde woman and some brat of a kid. Any of that sound familiar?"

"Kid, you could be talking about dozens of people right now." Junior explained. "If you're looking for the people responsible, I need names or I need motives. You thinking this girl was kidnapped?"

"Yeah." Yang replied. "And I don't have names or a motive. That's why I'm here. I don't know enough and I need to know more."

Junior stroked his facial hair for a moment. "You're not giving me a lot to work with, girl."

"She went missing a while ago." Yang tried. "She'd need to be kept somewhere without being found out. Is there any location where a person could be held without risk of being heard calling for help?"

"Too many variables." Junior replied. "The easiest way to do that would be to get out of the city, and that's assuming there's no gags or sedatives in play."

Yang nearly groaned in frustration. Then, an idea came to her.

"Give me a moment." She said. "My uncle had access to the camera footage, I'll get him to send me a screenshot of the last people my sister talked to. Is there a problem with that?"

"Time's ticking, girl." Junior said, as the people at the bar slid him another drink.

Pulling out her scroll and moving to Qrow's contact information, Yang typed out a quick text to get him to send the screenshot. He responded after a moment with three different emoji, of a clock, a running man, and a smiling face.

Yang wanted to ask what the hell that meant, but didn't want to distract him from getting the camera footage.

"So, what's you name?" The girl in red asked.

"Yang." The girl with yellow hair said. "Yours?"

"Miltia." She said, before pointing at the girl in white. "That's Melani-"

"Don't drag me into this." Melanie snapped. "I don't want anything to do with her."

The girl in red shrugged. "It's better than just thinking of her as blondie. There's too many blondies. She's talking about a blondie. Less confusion this way."

Qrow finally sent the screenshot, and Yang held the scroll in front of Junior.

"Here they are." She said, pointing at the blonde woman with revealing clothing. "Does she look familiar to you?"

Junior looked at it, then paused. "Melanie, take a look at this. Was this the girl here on the ninth?"

Melanie sighed, and looked over Junior's shoulder.

"Looks like." She replied, before losing interest.

"So you know her?" Yang asked.

"Not well." Junior said. "She came here once, and a few of my workers have done jobs for her before."

"What can you tell me about her?"

Junior held up a hand. "Hold it. This is where information stops being free. I'm gonna need some payment for this. Or a favour."

Yang gritted her teeth, and breathed to calm herself down.

"I don't have much on me." Yang said. "But tell me about this favour."

Keep calm, she thought to herself. They were onto something here. They could work with this.

"A friend of mine runs a fight club." Junior said. "And a few of his fighters didn't turn up. He's short a match as a result, which sucks for him because one less round means less betting and less profits. I can afford to send one of my bodyguards here down later, but he's still one person short."

"You want me to go into a fight club?" Yang asked.

"Depends." Junior replied. "Can you fight?"

"Hell yeah." The girl with yellow hair responded. "But what's the difficulty we're looking at here?"

"Not too bad." Junior shrugged. "There's different groups for different ages, you'll be bumped up one if you turn out to be too tough, and you don't need to fight much. On short notice, you'd probably just be scheduled into a double-team match, two against two, but that's still an increase in betting opportunities."

"This sounds rather illegal." Yang noted dubiously.

Junior shrugged. "Nobodies reported it, and I have it on good authority there's a cop occasionally present."

"Corrupt?"

Junior shrugged. "Is there any way to prove whenever or not they're taking bribes?"

Yang sighed. "Are those my options? Money or fight club? Is there anything else?"

"If you want the information today, sure." Junior said. "If you're willing to wait a few days, there's gonna be a race. The more people in it, the bigger the prize money, the bigger the gambling wins are. I stand to gain a few things there, and if you participated, I might be able to give you a discount. Even better, if you can stop a certain asshole from placing enough to get a prize, I could give away this information for free."

"A few days from now?" Yang asked. "I don't exactly have time for that-"

"Then go with the fight club." Junior shrugged. "Or just pay me now. Either way, your five minutes are up. Go for a walk, make up your mind, and come back if you decide to go with something."

"But-"

"You heard the man." Melanie aid, putting an arm on Yang's shoulder and squeezing enough to cause a small amount of pain. "Leave. He'll hear your answer later, let the man drink for now."

Reluctantly, Yang stepped away, and Melanie let go of her shoulder.

"I'm glad you understand." Melanie said, as Yang walked away.

The yellow-haired Huntress in training walked off, trying not to let the girl in white get to her.

A potential lead. That was good. If they could track down the blonde woman, they could figure out what she had to do with Ruby's disappearance. They were one step closer to finding Ruby.

Exiting the club and walking down the street, Yang turned when she saw the flower shop, and stopped when she stood in front of the window. A moment later, her father stepped out of the building.

"Yang." Taiyang said. "Any luck?"

"Junior might have a lead." Yang noted. "But it's not free. I could buy it, but he's saying he's willing to give the information away for a favour too."

Taiyang frowned. "What kind of favour?"

"Gambling thing." Yang replied.

Her father relaxed. "Oh. Go on, what was he asking for?"

"He had two suggestions." Yang noted. "Filling in at a fight club tonight, or participating in a race in a few days."

The blond man considered it for a moment.

"Let me guess." He said. "You want to go for the fight club, but don't want to make me worry?"

"I mean, the race sounds appealing too, it's just in a few days-"

"Don't worry about what I think." Taiyang replied. "While money would be the easiest, either of the other options could provide more opportunities too. Running into someone who might know something, for instance."

"So you're going to let me try it?" Yang asked.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm against it." Taiyang replied. "If you want to fight, I'm a bigger fan of the 'Go in and beat people up' strategy. But information gotten that way is a bit more unwilling, so staying on Junior's good side is probably important, and if this is a gambling thing, he'd probably get a bigger profit from the fight or race then just a straight-up transaction. I'll let you make the call, though."

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to tag into the ring?" Yang asked, out of curiosity.

"I somewhat doubt the legality of the options that don't have us beat everyone up. I'll probably sit to the side if we don't try that. Don't want the big bad Hunter scaring all the poor little borderline criminals off, after all. Just let me know what you decide soon, I'm keeping a list of all the bad decisions you're making and once we find Ruby you'll be properly made fun of for them, in addition to however long you're grounded for knowing about this place."

Yang groaned. "Dad, please. There's nothing _Xiong_ with knowing about Hei Xiong's club."

Taiyang chuckled. "Ha ha, Yang. Good one. Very funny. I'm dy _yang_ here."

He paused. "Die-Ying. Die-Yang. Tai-Yang. Damn it, I could have taken the joke further."

"If you're too slow to come up with that at the time, I guess we know for sure Ruby gets it from her mother."

"I will not stand here and be mocked by my own daughter." He declared. Then he sat down on the ground. "Go on."

Yang laughed.

 **After they finish goofing off, the two of them have to reach a decision. What does Yang decide?**

 **[X] Just give Junior some money. It's simple, it's easy, no big risks beyond him maybe asking for more later.**  
 **[X] Go to the Fight Club. It's easy, she just needs to turn up for Junior to give the information, and a chance to punch something would be great stress relief.**  
 **[X] Enter the race in two days. Yang's father had been hinting at her next birthday present for a while, get that motorbike early and use it to win the race.**  
 **[X] Taiyang's got the right idea. Go back to Junior's club and beat up everyone until he spills the information for free.**


	28. What Is Fight Club?

**[X] Go to the Fight Club. It's easy, she just needs to turn up for Junior to give the information, and a chance to punch something would be great stress relief.**

"Ah, you're back." Junior said, as he saw Yang approach. "I assume you've reached a decision, then?"

Yang took a moment to look at him, before nodding. "Yeah. I'm in on this Fight Club stuff."

Junior nodded, and finished his glass. "Good to hear. Melanie, Miltia, which of you were going in today?"

"I'll go." Melanie interrupted. "Something about blondie rubs me the wrong way, and I'd love to see someone punch her in the face a bit."

"Well screw you too." Yang cut in.

With a shrug, Melanie continued. "Besides, I've improved a lot recently. I want to test my abilities."

Junior shrugged. "Don't annoy the client and we have a deal. Yang, you'll get your information when you get back. Now get going, you'll be late otherwise."

"I'll be back later." Yang said, as she turned to leave.

"Unless you end up in a hospital bed." Melanie cut off. "Be back by closing time, Junior."

Junior waved at them, but was too busy getting another drink to look their way.

Melanie took the lead, walking as if Yang wasn't even there, and the yellow haired teen had to walk faster than usual to keep pace with the girl in white. As the exited the club, Yang saw her father hanging out in the corner in a cloak that concealed his features and made it hard to tell to any watchers that Yang had her father following.

As Melanie immediately cut into a side alley, Yang had to quickly follow her before she disappeared, so didn't get to wave at her father or anything. Instead, as she walked, she decided to talk to Melanie.

"So..." She tried. "I get the idea that you don't like me."

"No, what gave you that impression? I love people like you, always stating the obvious like that."

"No need to be sarcastic." Yang replied.

"Sarcasm? From me? No, I'm _genuine_."

"Look, have I offended you somehow?" Yang asked. "Because really, if I have, I'm sorry, but give me a break."

Melanie ignored her and kept walking. As she stepped into another street and took a left, Yang asked another question.

"I don't suppose you could tell me a bit about this Fight Club thing before we got there?" Yang asked.

Melanie sighed. "If it'll mean I don't have to listen to your voice, I don't mind talking about it a bit."

Yang nodded, and kept silent in the hopes of keeping her escort happy.

"Rules are simple. When you go in, whoever you are doesn't matter. Criminal, ancient enemy, gang war rival, doesn't matter. In fight club, you're a fighter. I the ring, you're opponents. No going easy on people in the ring, no acting on old grudges outside it. If anyone breaks the rules, it's fully acceptable for them to be thrown out."

"Metaphorically, or..."

"I'm sorry, was that words?" Melanie asked. "I thought I said I was talking so you wouldn't."

Yang fell silent.

"You go in, you sign up- Which I'll do for you so people know you're with Junior- And then you wait for your name to be called. Today's entertainment is a tag match system. There's one ring, two people go in. They fight. The loser leaves, the winner stays, the next person has their name called, and they jump in to fight immediately. The longer you last, the more opponents you beat, the bigger the payoff on anyone who bets on you."

Yang nearly said it sounded like fun, but then she remembered what Melanie had said earlier and kept silent. Looking back, she saw her dad standing in his cloak on top of a building, watching them, and looked away before anyone could follow here gaze.

"We're here." Melanie said, as she turned towards a large skyscraper of some sort.

"...Not what I was expecting." Yang noted. "I mean, it's a gambling centre judging by the sign, but I pictured this going down in a gritty warehouse or something."

Melanie scoffed. "You are a fool, then. Hurry along."

"Which floor?" Yang asked, heading for the elevator.

"Don't bother with that." Melanie replied. "It's on the thirteenth floor. The elevator doesn't work, which is convenient because the elevator door is used to get to the arena."

"...You said this was legal, right?"

Melanie didn't respond as she started walking up the stairs. Sighing, Yang followed.

It took some time to get to the thirteenth floor, by the end of which Yang was rather bored with Melanie's refusal to talk or let her talk. Once they stepped up to the thirteenth floor, they reached the out of order elevator.

Melanie moved the sign aside, and pressed the call elevator button. It opened a moment later, and she and Yang stepped in. The elevator closed a moment later, and Melanie entered in a seemingly random string of floor numbers.

The elevator rotated, then opened to a crowded room.

"Welcome." Said a butler-looking old man. "May I take your names?"

"Melanie." Said the girl. "This here is Yang, a fill-in from Junior. We'll be competing tonight."

"Excellent." The butler man said. "What power ranking would you prefer to face?"

"Give me the best you got." Melanie said with a grin.

The butler looked at Yang, who shuffled. "I don't mind going in early? I mean, I get stronger the more I get hurt, so you might not want to use me first if you're escalating in power..."

The butler nodded. "Very well. Your names will be announced when you are ready. Will either of you be taking bets."

Yang shook her head, and Melanie shooed her away as she pulled out a rather large wallet.

Wandering around, Yang was surprised at how fancy the place was. There was a big pit in the floor that was apparently the ring, and even if seemed rather shiny and colourful. Not at all what Yang would have been expecting from a "Legal" Fight Club.

The people here were fancy, too. Sure, some of them resembled what you would expect from violent thugs, but there was a large variety of outfit choices here. Some wore mysterious cloaks and capes meant to look cool, some were in refined outfits like suits and ballgowns, there was at least one guy wearing a lucha mask and a champions belt, with very little else, and even people wearing what was basically extraneous belts, zippers, and segments of fabric shaped like the letter x.

Yang looked around to see if this place would end up having food, but then suddenly realised she recognised beltman in the crowd.

"Blast?" She asked.

The boy in belts stumbled at his name, turning to her. "Yang? What are you doing here?"

Yang looked at him for a moment, and he coughed. "I mean... Blast? You mean my identical twin cousin, Blast Yellowstone? An annoyance, that one. He doesn't even have a magnificent moustache! I am his cousin, Explosion Hardcheese."

"You don't have a moustache either, Boom." Yang pointed out.

Blast reached for his face, then turned to the roof. "Curses! My fabulous facial hair has been stolen from me! Damn you, Blast Yellowstone, the one man as handsome and cunning as I!"

Yang coughed.

"...You're not buying it, are you?"

"So, is this a regular thing for you, or..."

"Funny story about that." Blast laughed. "I was walking around one day, decided to be cool and climb a building from the outside, and when I reached the roof, I walked around a bit, accidentally stepped on a piece of roof that wasn't well supported, and it caved in. And then I got in fight with everyone here, and it was Free For All day so it was kinda like a bar brawl, and when people noticed my name wasn't on the list I got an invite."

"...Huh."

"What about you, Yang?" Blast asked. "Someone recommend a beauty like you here to make this place more livel-"

"I'm doing a favour for Junior." Yang interrupted. "My sister's been kidnapped and he might know something, so I'm doing this in exchange for that something."

Blast blinked. "Your sister's been kidnapped? Shit, Yang, I'm sorry, didn't know-"

"It's fine." Yang dismissed. "I just needed to come here to keep the betting more profitable and he'll pass it on, I'll find Ruby in no time."

Blast shrugged. "Well, if you say so. Hey, if you need a hand with finding her, just give me a ring, alright?"

Yang nodded, and Blast disappeared into the crowd.

It didn't take long after that, for a voice to begin speaking.

"Ladies and Gentlemen." The voice called. "It's finally time to get this show on the road! Bettings are still open to any who wish to bet, but it's time for the first round to BEGIN!"

There was the ding of a bell, and the voice started calling names.

"Fox Alistair! Explosion Hardcheese!"

Two figures jumped into the pit, and Yang stepped closer to observe it.

"Begin!"

A cackle of energy covered the pit, as a force field of some sort came into being, and the battle began.

Blast pulled out his gun and started twirling it around his finger, blinding firing several bullets in every direction that ricocheted wildly in the pit, before gripping it properly and firing straight at Fox.

There was a moment while the redish-orangish themed fighter stood still, before flicking away the bullet that was approaching him directly. Blast nodded at that, before shooting behind him. His bullet his another one of his bullets, forcing it to hit the wall and bounce off. Both bullets flew right at Fox, who continued deflecting.

Reaching into his pocket, Blast pulled forth a small ball.

"Let's see if mother's new toy works."

Throwing it at Fox, the ball was instantly shattered by a punch. It exploded outwards into a dozen tiny razer blades, the closest of which began cutting into Fox's arm, sticking to his Aura for a moment before being thrown to the floor. One of Blasts bullets hit the mini blade storm and started bouncing all around it, sending hundreds towards Fox before barrelling towards his head. It missed by an inch, and Blast sighed.

"Well, too much to ask for that being an easy fight ender." He sighed, reloading his revolver. "Say, Alistair, I don't suppose you're going to fight at any poi-"

The fist to the gut took Blast off guard, and he was sent flying into the wall. Fox moved to follow up, before being forced to dodge to the side by another one of Blast's ricocheting bullets, giving the boy time to recover.

A flurry of more bullets were fired, and Yang observed their path as they bounced all over the pit, somehow speeding up as they did so.

"Here's another thing I wanted to test." Blast said. "My Semblance is _amazing_ , and has the awesome side effect that I can test potentially weapon destroying stuff with little fear, because otherwise I couldn't do cool stuff in the fight any furthe-"

Fox's fist hit Blast in the throat, cutting him off as it pinned him to the wall. It cratered slightly at the impact, and Fox pushed his fist deeper into Blast for a moment, before an alarm rang out.

Fox stepped back, and Blast took a moment to breath heavily, regaining his breath. Then, he found himself floating upwards, and being deposited outside the pit.

"Next fighter!" The announcer declared. "And boy, is this one a familiar name! Marcus Black!"

The drawn out name announcement didn't seem to fit well with how silently the white-haired man stepped forward towards the pit, pushing aside a younger looking boy with grey hair and a clear resemblance to him in the process. Fox turned to Marcus, and though he had been unarmed as he fought Blast, the mere mention of the name of this new fighter seemed to be enough to spook Fox into activating his weapon, another set of gauntlets that quickly unfolded to have blades hang from Fox's elbows.

Yang paused for a moment to consider what kind of reputation Marcus must have, that he provoked that response and had caused the crowd to fall silent, without a cheer or a boo or anything.

Fox opened up the fight immediately going into melee with ferocity that Yang rarely saw in fights between people, let alone a non-lethal match. Marcus seemed casual in his response, ducking and weaving away from hit after hit, before seeing an opening in kicking Fox in the back.

Fox disappeared in a flash, and Yang wasn't able to pick up his movement until he slid to a stop just in front of a wall. He turned rapidly, weapons in position to attack anyone who came close, but Marcus had kept his distance, merely walking calming towards Fox.

For a moment, Fox listening to Marcus' footsteps as the older mans lowly walked towards Fox. Then, Marcus' boots began smoking, before dropping a thick cloud of it like a smoke bomb.

Fox, to his credit, didn't seem to react to the blinding smoke, and swung wildly into the smoke. He struck, Marcus being forced to block with his legs, and then the cloud of smoke engulfed the two and Yang saw nothing.

There was the sound of combat for a while, along with the occasional grunt of exhaustion or pain from Fox, before an alarm went off.

There was a pause, before Fox was lifted out of the arena, exhausted. A moment later, Marcus leaped out of the pit on the opposite end, seemingly exhausted himself even if he hid it better.

Odd, then, that he had some sort of reputation. Maybe he was more of an ambush fighter than a head to head fighter?

Before the question could be thought on for much longer, Yang heard the announcer call her name, and jumped into the pit. The area was still full of smoke, but as she walked to the middle, she was able to see her opponent as they jumped down before her.

 **[X] It was the boy who was standing next to Marcus with the vague resemblance.**  
 **[X] It was Melanie, with a smirk on her face and a light in her eyes.**  
 **[X] It was a young man, probably only twenty or so, with a vicious grin on his face.**


	29. Break Stuff

**[X] It was a young man, probably only twenty or so, with a vicious grin on his face.**

"Aglaeca Wulfgang!" The announcer declared, as the young man hit the ground. As he hit the ground, he flexed, and his shirt was ripped off with almost explosive force, revealing-

Oh wow those abs.

Yang really wished she had a camera on her.

Aglaeca took a moment himself to look over Yang staring at her face as if trying to figure out her age, before giving a disappointed sigh and moving into a combat stance. Shocked out of her admiration for some really well defined abs, you could grate cheese on those things, Yang moved into a combat stanec of her own, and tried to focus on his weapons over his well muscled arms.

He seemed to be similar to Yang, in that he was wearing gauntlets. Though, they were rather slim, and Yang didn't see any gun parts on it...

A series of green markings on Algaeca's arm lit up, and Yang moved her arms to a guarding position, as he kicked off the floor and flew at Yang.

Yang's fist struck out to meet her opponents, and the smoke that still lingered was pushed aside by the wind of the blow. Algaeca pulled back as he swung his next fist, and again, Yang met hit fist with her own.

These flying fists continued to collide for some time, with Algaeca blocking all of Yang's blows with his fist as Yang did the same to his. The speed of the conflict continued, as they stood in place and continued punching, until Yang decided to change things up a bit.

As their fists came together on the same point once again, Yang opened her hand at the last second, catching Aglaeca's fist on her palm, and holding it in place. When he was surprised at his inability to pull back, Yang stepped forward and punched at his face with her left hand. At the same time, Aglaeca's fist flew next to hers, nearly hitting her arm.

They struck each other's face in unison, and Yang fired Ember Celica as they clashed. Both of them were sent backwards by the force, but Yang merely skidded on the floor for a moment, while Aglaeca was sent slamming into the wall on the other side of the pit.

Standing up first, Yang took advantage of Aglaeca's moment of weakness to open fire, unleashing Ember Celica as fast as she could to send a dozen projectiles at Aglaeca.

Unable to dodge all of them, the warrior skid to the side and crossed his arms to guard his face and chest sidestepping as many projectiles as he could while shielding himself as best he could. His Aura flared as Yang's projectiles exploded against him. As the last projectile hit, he hesitated a moment, before looking past his arms just in time to see Yang dashing in to punch him up close.

Firing Ember Celica in his face again, Yang noted how he seemed to expect it this time, and was able to brace himself and not go flying. Undeterred, she danced around beside him and struck again. He lurched forward to dodge the blow, before spinning around and moving to kick Yang. Yang held up her arm to block his roundhouse kick, then grabbed his leg and used it to pull him off balance.

As he stumbled towards her, Yang brought her knee upwards, hitting him in the chin and sending him up, right into her fist as she struck and shot downwards. Aglaeca hit the ground, and Yang continued firing Ember Celica downwards.

The young man rolled to the side, grabbing Yang's leg and using it to pull her down. Yang put her arm down and bounced off it as she fell, propelling herself upwards so she could flip in the air and land on her feet again, but by the time she had done so Aglaeca had recovered his own footing.

As she turned to face him, Aglaeca punched Yang in the stomach. Yang heard the sound of shattering steel as the force of the blow sent her flying into a wall, hitting her hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs.

Aglaeca approached Yang slowly, shaking his fist as he did so. Yang noticed that the gauntlet seemed to have broken under the blow, and was crumbling off. An intentional design choice, probably, judging by how it had shattered in the perfect way to leave a makeshift brass knuckle in place of the gauntlet, but what purpose would that serve?

Some sort of trick to his Semblance, maybe? The force of the blow which had broken the gauntlet had been a lot stronger than any of his previous attacks...

Pulling herself off the wall, Yang grinned and made her own slow walk towards her opponent. Whatever the trick, it had hurt. But that just meant her own Semblance was starting to get to work.

Waiting until Aglaeca was mid-step, Yang moved with all her speed to get to his side before he could react properly, reeling back a fist as she did so, and used all her momentum to strengthen the blow as fast as she could. She stepped past him, and her fist came forward to hit him in the face as she passed.

Aglaeca had raised a fist of his own to catch the blow, but with the momentum behind the blow, his hand was forced back at a fractionally slower speed, hitting him in the face all the same. He reeled, letting go of Yang's hand and taking a step back, right into the path of Yang's next blow, which struck the back of his head at the same time she fired her shotgun gauntlets, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Yang leaped over him, getting to the other side of him even as he tried to flip upwards, ready to hit him again before he could do anything. In mid-air, the young man clenched the fist with his brass knuckle on it, holding it tight enough to shatter the remained of the steel, and raised his arm to block Yang's shotgun blast before it could hit his face.

Landing on his feet in front of Yang, Aglaeca caught her fist as she sent it towards him, then quickly shot his elbow up under her neck and used it to lift her into the air. Running forward and pinning her against the wall, Aglaeca held her still and ignored her kicks and manoeuvring, punching her in the face repeatedly while she tried to pry his elbow away from her neck with her good hand.

Each blow knocked Yang's head back into the wall, essentially hitting her twice, and she gritted her teeth for a moment. Her Semblance allowed her to grow stronger while taking punishment, so-

As the next fist came at her, Yang used a burst of strength to wrench hers caught arm to the side, pulling the elbow away from her neck, and lunged forward to headbutt Aglaeca and send him stumbling back a step.

Taking the opportunity to turn the tables again, Yang swept a leg around his torso, then pulled it back to slam him against the wall while she pushed off of it.

Behind her, Aglaeca laughed.

"So that's your trick." He grinned. "You get hurt, you bounce back stronger. You're at your strongest when you have to suffer for your strength."

"Still working on yours." Yang countered. "Let me guess, breaking things make you stronger?"

"Consider it a limit break of sorts." Aglaeca admitted, as Yang turned to him. "When I break a weapon while the thrill of battle is in my veins, I get stronger like you. In a way, we both get stronger as we continue. It's just that your strength comes from pain, whereas I grow stronger as I approach the most natural form of combat."

Chuckling to himself, Aglaeca grinned like a madman.

"Man, I'm excited." He said. "But you know what? I kinda want to see what you're like at your strongest. I guess I'll just have to go all out to see it."

Before Yang could react, he slammed his weapon against the wall, leaving a large dent in the pit's wall and shattering both gauntlet and brass knuckle in a single blow. Then, with speed Yang would usually expect to see from experienced warriors like Winter and that mercenary she had fought, he was in Yang's face, pausing momentarily so she could see the fist coming down at her.

Yang reacted as fast as she could, punching at the fist coming towards her with all her might. Fist met fist, and both fighters were forced back by the force of the blow, not helped by how Yang fired an explosion just as she hit Aglaeca.

A moment passed, and Yang heard a crack. Eyes wide, she looked down at Ember Celica.

On her left fist, there were growing cracks all over her gauntlet.

"Forgot to mention." Aglaeca noted casually. "Semblance lets me ignore Aura when hitting anything but flesh, and breaking other peoples weapons makes me just as strong as breaking my own."

He moved at Yang again, and the yellow-haired girl responded by turning and running.

Her one advantage in this fight was her ranged attacks, which she took full advantage of by firing her right gauntlet at her pursuer. As she approached the side of the wall, she ran up to it and circled around, continuing to fire at Aglaeca as he tried to cut her off, dodging to the wall to the right of Yang and running up that.

Yang kicked off the wall, firing her weapon at it to get away from it faster, and took a moment to roll on the ground. Her Aura strained from the explosion and force of hitting the ground, but that just made Yang stronger.

As she landed, Aglaeca flashed in beside her, and Yang swept her left arm at him, slammed it into where he was as he ducked under it and kicked at her. Yang gritted her teeth as she stepped back, and responded with a kick of her own that forced Aglaeca to step back.

"I felt that one." He said, panting slightly. "By the looks of things, your Aura should be at the point where you're about a hit or so away from being below the point where the fight is called."

Yang glared at him, stepping back as she rubbed her fist slightly.

"As it so happens, so is mine. So what do you say we end this right here, right-"

Yang stepped forward, suddenly forcing Ember Celica away from her open palm and towards her opponent, firing as she did so. Before he could process that he was being attacked, the explosive round hit him in the chest and he grunted, bending forward in pain, and an alarm went off.

Aglaeca looked at Yang with a somewhat disappointed expression, but then smiled.

"Serves me right from not losing myself in the fight enough." He dismissed. "I'll see you again, Yang. I'll want a proper ending to this another time."

And with that, the pit's energy field lifted him out, and Yang took a moment to look at her damaged weapon.

Damn it, that'd take a few days to repair. The firing mechanism was busted, by the looks of things, which halved her rate of fire. Not to mention that it looked like the ammo storage was cracked, so she'd need to take it apart to fix that and recover the shots...

A thud alerted her to her next opponent, a giant of a woman who swung a large halberd around her head. She charged at Yang, who grabbed her weapon and pulled it towards herself.

With the halberd woman pulled off balance, Yang was able to jump at her. The girl with yellow hair wrapped her legs around the chest of her bigger opponent, and started punching her for in the back of the head, firing rapidly few a few moment. The large woman dropped her halberd and started running backwards, apparently seeking to slam Yang into the wall.

At the last second, Yang spun around to the other side of the woman, kicked off of her, and fired. Between the strength she had at this point, the weapon, and the woman slamming herself into the wall, it was enough for the alarm to sound, and the woman was lifted out with a look of dismay.

The third opponent stepped into the ring a moment later, a rather elegant looking man with long hair, with a visor covering his left eye. He held up his sword as the round began, and as Yang opened fire on him, his sword fell apart, unfolding into multiple...

...Flying drones, apparently?

The dozen or so sharp devices flew, and Yang noticed momentarily that the man was following their movement with his gaze. Or perhaps, more correctly, they were following where he was looking? The visor was some control mechanism?

Yang ignored the airborne projectiles as she dashed for the man, getting into his face as quick as she could and firing at him as soon as she could. A drone took the hit for the man, falling to the ground and growing immobile as it did so, and the man simply looked at her. The rest of the drones converged, and Yang slammed her fist together to flare up her Aura and let her flames damage them.

Yang dashed at the man again, backhanding the drone the man piloted to guard his face, and moved to punch him in the face. At the last second, she opened her hand and grabbed the visor off the man, ripping it off of him and crushing it in her hand as it fell out of the protection of his Aura.

The man seemed annoyed, but merely pressed a button of sorts on the hilt of his sword, and all the drones around the two exploded. Both of them were pelted by the shrapnel, and the man's Aura was reduced immensely in an instant, but Yang was already at the verge of defeat when she was hit.

There was an alarm, and for a moment, the man spoke.

"You did well." He said. "With that technique used, my next foe will defeat me for sure. This victory over you was rather pyrrhic."

"I suppose that makes me feel better about losing." Yang admitted, as she was lifted out of the ring. She was placed next to Blast as the energy field let her go, and he turned to Yang as she landed.

"Good fight." He said. "Taken out in your third round? Not bad for a first timer. I've still only made it to two."

"I suppose I'm just better than you, then." Yang grinned.

"Beginner's luck." Blast dismissed, snorting. "I could still kick your ass."

Yang watched, as the kid who looked like Marcus fell into the ring and started his own fight. As he kicked the man and rapidly started dominating the match, Blast turned to Yang.

"So, are you gonna stick around for the rest of the fights, or..."

Yang thought on it for a moment.

 **[X] "Yeah, I'll watch until Melanie finishes, then I can head back to Junior's."**  
 **[X] "I should go talk to dad about fixing up the left gauntlet. Hey, if Melanie stops by, tell her I'll be waiting out the front."**  
 **[X] "I'm not doing anything better, may as well check the news on my scroll and see if there's any possible leads while I'm here..."**


	30. Pumped Up Kicks

**[X] "Yeah, I'll watch until Melanie finishes, then I can head back to Junior's."**

Even as Yang gave her reply to Blast, there was a gunshot from within the pit. Looking back down in it, Yang watched at the teenager with leg mounted guns continued an assault, not giving his opponent time to react. From what she could tell by the attempts to deflect, the man who had defeated her seemed to be using graceful and controlled movements, but his opponent, while as controlled, was far more aggressive.

One of them was clearly better suited to close quarters combat.

The alarm rang, and it took a moment for the boy to stop kicking, with his attacks already planned out and in motion before he could process the alarm. His opponent stood shakily, and was lifted out of the ring.

"Melanie Malachite!" The announcer declared, and the girl in white jumped down a moment later. Her heels folded momentarily, shifting into blades.

Oh, great. They were both kickers.

Yang had trouble following fighters who used their legs above anything else. She was a brawler, she'd use anything in a fight, but her fists were her primary weapon. She'd learnt about the best ways to punch someone.

Legs? That's where things got difficult. Her experience with arms didn't transfer to legs well. She always misjudged how much force a kick had in it until it hit, the difference in posture needed to kick someone compared to punching someone made them harder to read, length of the legs and body always meant she misjudged how close she was to their range of attack.

With most people, this was fine. People would use their legs to attack when they got the chance. Kick someone in the leg, sweep them off their feet, knee them if they're bent over, it was simple.

With someone who specialised in kicking you? Their footwork could get complex, and Yang struggled to read what was an attack, what was a feint, what was meant to hit and what was meant to set up a stronger hit.

Indeed, as soon as the battle began, Yang was lost on what exactly was happening.

Maybe it was because she struggled to pick apart leg-based combat, but the two fighters seemed to be somewhat similar in combat style. Both moved aggressively, not giving any ground to the other except as a plot to set up another attack. Yang did notice that Melanie attacked less frequently, with a lot of her movements being feint or simply striking out to force her foe on the defensive, whereas her foe seemed to make every attack with the intent to either hurt or get ready to hurt.

"Are you following this any better than I am?" Yang asked.

"You having trouble?" Blast asked. "You know, you don't get to get _that_ distracted over some well muscled legs-"

"I'm sorry, I've spent so much time around you I'm used to people having twigs." Yang replied sarcastically.

Blast put a hand over his heart. "Urk! Thus I am slain, by thou cruel words, my fair maiden."

"But seriously." Yang cut in. "Can you read this any better than me?"

"I think Mercury's winning." Blast replied. "He's had more control over the flow of the fight. He looks like he's going somewhere with it."

Yang nodded, and returned to looking at the fight. Melanie sliced at Mercury, who grabbed her leg and threw his own up at her. His boots fired, striking her in the chest with a projectile, and he flipped through the air as he switched to his other leg and fired again.

Rolling off the floor and kicking up to cut the approaching projectile in two, Melanie proceeded to stomp her raised leg downwards, leveraging the rest of her upwards as she danced towards Mercury.

The grey-haired teen flipped as he approached, trying to sweep his leg under her feet to pull her off balance, but someone trained in kicking people in the face had better footwork than that, and Melanie was able to step over his attempted trip. He rolled back as she approached, ducking under a slicing kick from Melanie, and then firing his heel backwards to propel himself forward. Rolling on the ground to preserve his momentum but change his positioning, Mercury kicked Melanie in the face.

Rather then fire off immediately, as Yang had been expecting, Mercury swept his other leg around, kicking her in the side before she could move backwards, sending her sideways instead. Hitting the ground as Melanie slammed into it, Mercury brought his arm around to catch her as she bounced and threw her upwards just so he could hook his legs around and slam her down again.

Melanie said something that Yang couldn't quiet here, and then gave a soft laugh.

With a sudden burst of strength that she hadn't had a moment ago, Melanie pulled Mercury off his feet, forcing her legs up and leveraging them for a slice at Mercury's neck.

"Huh." Blast said, as the clash continued. "She wasn't that strong last time."

Yang looked at him. "Last time?"

"A while ago. The seventh or so. Didn't do well, lost a round badly. She must've been training like crazy since then."

Yang nodded, and looked back to the fight.

At some point, Melanie and Mercury had gotten some distance, and Mercury let out another shot that barely missed Melanie as she stepped to the side. The next shot of his was casually sliced through, but even as Melanie started approaching, Yang noted the projectile behind Melanie looping around.

It struck her in the back as she got close to Mercury, and she stumbled momentarily. Barely a heartbeat of surprise. But that was all Mercury needed, as he immediately slammed her into the ground. He took his chance to stamp down on her back, and fired repeatedly while she was pinned down, and continued doing so for a few minutes.

Then, Melanie shifted, and in a surprising show of strength, managed to roll over despite the foot pinning her down, before spinning herself upwards and kicking around her. Mercury took a leap back as Melanie moved into action, but Melanie laughed.

"Is that all you have?" She asked. "That barely even stung! I'm not even hurt! I feel _great_!"

In a flash, she approached Mercury, casually deflecting his kick with her knee and striking at his chest, hard enough to send him flying into the wa-

There was another smashing sound, as Melanie reached the wall first and kicked Mercury away from it, before he could hit it himself. The sudden change in momentum caused him to cry as the whiplash hit him, and as he was slammed into the ground, Melanie moved into motion, slicing across his neck. The alarm blared, and Melanie froze for a moment, before stepping back.

Before Mercury could be lifted out of the ring, Marcus was beside him. Looking up in fear, Mercury couldn't react before his father put a hand around his throat, and physically threw him from the pit. Marcus jumped after Mercury, forcibly pulled him up to his feet, and though Yang couldn't see the older man's expression, the expression on Mercury's face wasn't one she found very reassuring. It twisted into hatred for a moment, before fear ruled it again, and finally went blank.

...Yeah, that wasn't a healthy family there.

The next competitor went in, a man dressed in light blue with a phantasmal sword in his grip. In only a few minutes, Melanie proceeded to take the man apart, disarming him multiple times. Each time, the man would shift the weapon back to him and change it's form, and would also change it's form multiple times while in combat, often trying to build up momentum with a smaller weapon before striking with a bigger one, or extending the range at the last moment to get a hit, but he was unable to strike Melanie once in the conflict.

In the end, Melanie had finished her fifth opponent by the time she retired from the ring. She seemed exhilarated, and barely even tired, as she exited next to Yang.

Everyone looked at her for a moment, before the announcer gave the next two names, and they were distracted again.

"Yang." Melanie said, happier than Yang had seen her all night. "Come on, back to Junior's."

Yang nodded, getting to her feet, and looked back down at Blast.

"See you later." Yang said. "Business time."

Blast waved. "Hey, see if you can get Melanie to tell you how she trained, because I want to know how she got that good."

Melanie gave a chuckle, and started leaving. Yang followed her, out the door, past the elevator, and down some stairs.

Noting Melanie's increased good mode, Yang risked talking, to see if Melanie would still be annoyed by it or if she'd let it slid.

"You were pretty good in there." Yang complimented. "Though, Blast said you'd improved a lot recently. You've been training?"

"Oh, you can say that." Melanie replied, still laughing softly. "I met a friend while on a job, and they had some good tips."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"They were there on the ninth." Melanie explained, waving a hand. "Enjoying the area, but then they wanted to hire out a place in the city. I took the job, escorted them to the best place, and we talked."

"And you made a good friend that day?" Yang asked, curious. "So how'd they help you get so strong?"

"Oh, that's simple." Melanie said, as she turned back to look at Yang. Her eyes were a bright red.

"She sang me a song."

By the time Yang processed the attack, she was on the floor, a bladed heel to her neck.

"Wha-"

The heel pressed in, damaging Yang's Aura, as Melanie continued.

"Miltia and Junior still don't understand." Melanie said. "Five's song was more than just sound. It had more soul in it. I've gotten this much stronger just _remembering_ it."

Kicking Yang in the side, Melanie hit her prey into the wall, and pinned Yang to the wall by her neck as she continued.

"And I got all this just from helping her move!" Melanie giggled. "Imagine what she'd give me once she finds out I stopped you from looking into her?"

"T-Trai-"

Melanie punched Yang in the face, once more doing severe damage to her Aura.

"I can almost hear it now." Melanie whispered. "La la la..."

Her fist stuck again, and Yang was forced into the wall slightly, as it crumbled around her.

"La la LA la laaaa..."

Melanie giggled as she grinned to herself, striking Yang again and again. Even with her Semblance working as well as it was, she couldn't pull free from Melanie, until eventually, one of the blows sent Yang too far, and the wall collapsed. Yang was held over a sheer drop by her throat, and Melanie laughed.

"Too easy." She said, as she threw Yang away.

Shaking her head to work through the pain as she fell, Yang looked around, spotting the nearest rooftop.

Oh, good, one not too far away. A bit down, but it was only a six floor drop rather than a ten.

Landing strategy, then.

Moving her right hand behind her, Yang fired Ember Celica, propelling herself towards the raised building. She fell for a moment as Ember Celica prepared for another shot, and as she fell over the top of the building in question, Yang fired downwards to slow her fall.

She landed a moment later, still enough to do more damage to her Aura, but not enough to eliminate it completely.

Looking up to the Yang-shaped hole in the wall, the huntress in training saw Melanie step out of the gap, running down the building for a moment before kicking down and jumping.

She landed in front of Yang a moment later, a bloodthirsty grin on her face.

"Why didn't I do this sooner?" She asked, as she walked towards Yang. "Do you have any idea how _amazing_ I feel right now?"

"Psycho bitch." Yang swore.

Melanie laughed. "This feeling... This is the _greatest_ high!"

Yang punched forward, firing Ember Celica, and watched momentarily as Melanie simply batted the projectile away. That was fine. It wasn't meant to be an attack, anyway.

Pushed back by the force of her blast, Yang slid over the edge of the building, and quickly flipped in the air. Her foot touched the building, and Yang ran down, going down three floors before changing her angle, moving the momentum to a horizontal plane while still running down vertically slightly. As she approached a street corner, Yang jumped, rolled on the ground, and came to a stop as she crashed into the building on the other side of a street.

Could have gone worse. But then...

Melanie stepped off the building, and came crashing down six levels down, leaving cracks in the pavement as she didn't even bother bracing herself.

...Could have gone better.

Yang took a moment to consider. She definitely attracted attention with that stunt. And she had help nearby. She didn't need to run, she just had to not lose.

With that in mind, she charged.

If the sudden change in tactics caught Melanie off guard, she was too power drunk to react to it, simply kicking upwards as Yang approached. Yang leapt back, keeping out of range, and fired Ember Celica again to slow her forward momentum. Melanie brought her leg back down again, and gave Yang a glare with those hate filled red eyes, before charging in.

Yang moved to the side, jumping over a car to slow Melanie's pursuit, and was surprised when her attacker just sliced the vehicle in half instead of going over it. Firing again, Yang propelled herself upwards, hit the side of a building, and ran up for a bit before jumping out, over Melanie.

Almost casually, as if seeing how easy it could be, Melanie appeared in front of Yang in a flash and moved to hit her in the neck.

A hand caught Melanie's foot, and Yang smiled as her father's cloak fell away.

"Really, Yang." Taiyang smiled. "You have to stop antagonising everyone you meet."

"I learnt if all from you, dad."

Melanie leaped off the ground, trying to hit Taiyang with her other heel, and Yang's father widened his eyes as he pulled his head back to avoid being cut. Then, as Melanie tried to pry her leg from his grasp, he slammed her into the ground.

Melanie pulled from and cartwheeled away, getting back to her feet and looking at the father and daughter before her.

"You got your weapon busted." Taiyang casually noted to his daughter. "I thought I told you to take better care of your toys."

"Hey, I thought we agreed that what happened to Mr Smuggles wasn't my fault."

"I was just done with the conversation, it's totally your fault."

Melanie growled. "Stop-"

She appeared behind Taiyang, slamming here heel into his back.

"-Ignoring me!"

Taiyang spun around, swiping a fist at her, and Melanie danced out of range even as she made to cut his wrist as she did so.

"Oh, did I need to take you seriously?" Taiyang asked. "I thought security had that handled for me."

There was the sound of movement, before a trio of figures leaped down from the rooftops in front of Melanie.

"Malachite." Said the one in the front, with a sinister voice that sent a shiver down Yang's spine. "I believe an explanation is in order, for why you damaged my building and attacked a combatant outside of the pit."

Melanie grinned. "Hehe... Am I in trouble? Little old me?"

The lead man looked at Taiyang and Yang for a moment, then back at Melanie.

"You are outnumbered." He continued. "You will not be winning this fight. If you surrender now, we will allow you to pick which finger you like the least."

"Oh, not this one." Melanie continued, as she flipped the bird at him. "I'm rather fond of this one."

At the back of the group, there was a growl. "Take this seriously, Malachite. I don't think you understand the situation you're in."

Melanie laughed. "Oh, that's okay. Five's going to be sad I couldn't stop you here, but she'll sing me a song all the same for telling her she's being hunted..."

"What makes you think you're getting away?" The third member of the group asked.

Melanie smiled. "I called for backup before Yang even had her fight."

There was a shattering like glass, and Melanie was gone.

The three men who had appeared to oppose her reacted in shock.

"Find her!" The apparent leader ordered. "Don't let her get away!"

As the other two ran, the one in the middle approached Yang.

"My apologies, miss." He said, in a voice that still gave Yang the chills. "We do not accept this sort of behaviour in our... Events. Even if you were leaving, we apologise greatly for not assisting you sooner."

He disappeared in a burst of speed, and Taiyang turned to Yang, his earlier humour gone and a look of concern on his face.

"What happened?" He asked. "Are you hurt? Did she break Ember Celica? Did she do anything to you? Did sh-"

"I'm fine." Yang reassured him. "She wasn't the one who broke the left glove, no. Come on, I'll explain everything, but we should-"

 **[X] Chase Melanie. She couldn't have gone far, and there has to be a limit on her Semblance.**  
 **[X] Go back to Junior. Answers were needed desperately, and after that, Junior better freaking have them.**  
 **[X] Go home. Yang needed time to relax and think about what happened before further investigating.**


	31. Feelin' Blue

**[X] Go back to Junior. Answers were needed desperately, and after that, Junior better freaking have them.**

Yang wasn't alone when she walked back into Junior's club. Her father was right behind her as she went in. After what had happened, he didn't want to leave her alone. One person in Junior's group had tried to stab her in the back, and who knew how far up the influence really went?

As they walked in, Junior's bodyguards took one look at Taiyang's posture and facial expressions, and immediately moved up to him.

"Don't even think about it." He stated. "I want to talk to your boss-"

"We're not here to stop you." The first bodyguard said. "We've already heard from the Fight Club. Junior has emptied out the VIP section above the club and will meet with you there."

Taiyang blinked. "...Huh."

It makes sense, Yang thought. Her father hadn't been too happy when he had left, and even if he had put up a facade of joking around while Melanie and the security team were around, they probably would have sent word to Junior about what happened. Junior knew her name, so it would've been easy for him to look her up while she was gone, find out about her relation to a trained Hunter who teaches other Hunters, and prepare for someone like her father stopping in to find answers.

"How do we get there?" Yang asked.

"Follow us." The second bodyguard said, turning and walking away a distance. The other guard waited, obviously intending to follow Yang and her father.

"Stay here." Taiyang said.

"Hell no." Yang replied. "I met Junior first, I'm getting answers out of him."

"If this is a trap-"

Yang interrupted him. "Then I'll run while you beat everyone up, if it makes you happy."

Taiyang raised an eyebrow as he looked at her.

Yeah, she should have known he wasn't going to fall for that.

"I get the feeling Junior will want to hear what happened from me." Yang continued. "I was there, you just were told the information. Let's just save time and go with it."

Taiyang sighed. "If it looks like there's something dangerous going on, I'm physically throwing you out of the building if you don't run first."

"Noted." Yang replied, nodding.

The two of them walked after the bodyguard leading the way, as he escorted them through the club to a door next to the bar.

"Up here." The bodyguard said, opening the door to reveal a staircase. "This will take you to where Junior and Miltia are."

"Is there anyone else up there?" Taiyang asked.

"In the room? No. There's more of us waiting a room over in case you start a fight, however."

"That's the best we're gonna get..." The old man grumbled, as he started walking up the stairs. Yang followed him, and for a moment, they just walked. Eventually, the stairs curved, and as they went around the corner, they stepped into a larger room overlooking the rest of the club.

Junior was standing in front of a table, back to the stairway Yang and her father had just climbed, standing in front of several large screens which had folded down from the roof with a variety of information on it. Videos here, documents there, pictures as well. As Yang stepped into the room, she saw him furiously swiping around one of the screens, muttering to himself in the process.

Behind him, Miltia heard the two entering the room, and turned to look at them.

"Junior." She said softly. "We have guests."

Junior turned to the two of them, stepping away from his screens in the process.

"Miltia, take over." He ordered, as he stepped towards the two Xiao Long in the room.

"Yang." He said. "Taiyang. I want you to know I'm very sorry for Melanie's behaviour. She won't get away with this."

Miltia flinched behind Junior, as she played two videos simultaneously. Camera footage from within the building. The first, Melanie and Yang entering the Fight Club, with Melanie calm, somewhat bitchy, but normal. The second, Melanie and Yang exiting, with Melanie bubbly and excited and high on power.

"We didn't get any good audio with what we were sent." Junior continued. "I don't suppose you know anything as to why Melanie suddenly went psycho here?"

The video played Melanie's attack on Yang, and Miltia's breath stilled as she started noticeably giggling.

"Melanie mentioned someone named Five." Yang began. She'd remembered Two mentioning having a sister called Five that she hadn't seen in a while. A potential lead to follow up on. "She came here and hired some of your men on the ninth, then sang a song that got Melanie high on power of something. I'm thinking it's the person we're looking after, judging by what Melanie said."

Junior turned to his screen, and tapped and swiped a few times, before loading up a video of the club. The camera, in the corner, was aimed at the bar, and recorded two familiar people walking into the club. The woman and kid from the video where Ruby had gone missing.

"That's her." Taiyang confirmed. "Yang, didn't Qrow send you a screenshot?"

"I saw it." Junior interrupted. "Looks like your lead is going somewhere."

"Melanie said she was giving Five place in the city, hiring it out." Yang said. "Do you know where that is?"

Junior nodded, and swiped his hand a few more times. A map opened up, with a bunch of dots on it.

"One of these." He said, looking at them. "Miltia, figure out which."

The girl in the red dress nodded, and started flipping through documents on another screen.

Looking back at Yang and Taiyang, Junior continued.

"Did Melanie say why she turned on you?" He asked. "I need answers here."

Yang stepped forward. "Five had a song, apparently. Made Melanie stronger, and she was acting differently once she got to demonstrate it. Some sort of addictive power boost, maybe? She did say she might get to hear it more if she helps Five out."

Junior gritted his teeth, and turned to Miltia.

"Find out who was on the job with your sister." He commanded. "I want to know everyone who was with her. I want to know who else might be compromised."

Miltia reached for another screen without making a sound.

"How long is it going to be until you can narrow down with Five is hiding?" Yang asked.

"Not long." Junior replied. "It's late, though. Running off to investigate now while Melanie's off giving warning means they'll be on edge and ready to take you dow-"

"Would you rather we gave them time to run?" Yang asked. "Or that I gave time for her to work her song on my sister so she ends up a fucking giggling lunatic as well?"

There was a sudden shattering sound, and everyone turned to the source. Standing by the screens, Miltia's hand was embedded in the shattered glass, and she looked at it in as much surprise as any one else.

"...Miltia." Junior said, his voice softer than before. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked you to do anything now-"

"I'm fine." The girl in red said.

"Don't give me that." Junior cut in. "Take a break. Go lie down. I'll keep you informed when we find out more."

"I can-"

"Don't lie to me, Miltia." Junior interrupted. "Go home."

There was a moment of silence, before the girl in red wordlessly left.

"...Sorry about that." Junior said, rubbing his forehead with his hands. "I... Well, it's not been easy."

"I understand." Yang said. "But I still want an answer. What do you expect us to do, just leave Ruby with Five until she can bend her mind like she did Melanie's?"

"I somehow doubt that Five will be where we can find her regardless." Junior replied. "Melanie's definitely found her out again by now, so Five is probably running by now, and I doubt we'll be finding her by the time we locate her. We can find clues, but anything else probably doesn't matter."

"So we're not even going to look?" Yang asked.

Taiyang stepped forward. "Your not in a good shape right now, Yang." He insisted. "Let's rest the night. If there's a trap or an ambush there, you could get hurt bad."

"Bu-"

Junior interrupted. "I can't look into it tonight either. If I try without checking my group for who's compromised, I risk someone working with Five destroying evidence or misleading any investigation."

"So we're just leaving it here?" Yang asked. "Not going to look, not going to find Ruby, not going to do anything?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Junior asked.

Yang turned to her father. "I don't need to follow you, you could look into it yourse-"

"I don't think I can." Taiyang replied. "Your falling apart at the idea of not helping, if I leave you unattended you're going to run off and do something stupid."

"You don't-"

"Calm down, Yang." Her father continued. "I know you're worried, but you need to keep your cool."

Yang gritted her teeth. "I can't believe you're just saying I should-"

There was a beep from the screens, and Junior turned to them, swearing.

"Son of a bitch." He muttered. "She must've convinced some people, I'm getting a data error whenever I try to find where Melanie went that night. This is going to be a pain."

"What do you mean?" Taiyang asked.

"I'm going to have to go through and see which of those aren't recorded as being in use, and then I need to send people to look into the one's not in use. And I can't do that until I confirm who is and isn't compromised..."

"So we can't do anything tonight anyway." Taiyang noted, looking at Yang.

The teen growled. "So this has been just one big waste of our time, hasn't it?"

Before anyone could reply, she turned and started storming out. She was halfway down the stairs when her father put a hand on her shoulder.

"Yang, please." He said. "I know you're frustrated-"

"Of course I am!" Yang shouted. "All of this, and we're no closer to finding Ruby then we were yesterday!"

"We know more about who took her-"

"And that's supposed to change the fact that we have no idea where she is and we're going home without doing any thing to find her?"

"Listen to yourself." Taiyang interrupted. "You're throwing a temper tantrum because you thought you were making progress but didn't do as much as you had hoped. I know, I understand, I'm frustrated too. But you can't just act without thinking, Yang."

"How am I helping Ruby by doing nothing!" Yang shouted.

"How are you helping her if you go in without knowing anything?" Taiyang shouted back. "If this Five person beats you, sings her song and controls you like Melanie? How are you going to help Ruby once you get broken in by the person holding her captive!"

There was silence for a moment, as the two looked at each other.

"...I'm sorry." Taiyang replied, softly. "I shouldn't have yelled, I'm not helping. But, Yang, please. I've already got Ruby to worry about. I don't want to lose you too."

Yang paused, as she breathed heavily. Then, her vision went blurry, as she started tearing up.

The instant he saw this, Taiyang pulled her into a hug. "It's alright, Yang. It's alright."

No it wasn't. It wasn't even remotely alright. It wasn't enough that she was _useless_ to find Ruby, now she was being actively _unhelpful_ by being unable to control herself. How was she supposed to be of any help to finding Ruby if she keeps doing this? Feeling useless, almost doing something dumb, making everyone else angry and upset and making everything worse?

Could she be any more useless?

"I understand, Yang." Her father went on. "It's hard, I know. You just want to do something so you stop feeling so useless, so you can feel like your helping somehow. I know how you feel."

And now she needed to be consoled by her father, who _must_ be feeling much worse than she did. Her sister was missing, yes, but her father had most likely gone through something similar with her mother, who Yang had never even known properly. How must it feel for him? Did it feel like history was repeating itself, in the worst way?

And then there was Yang, being too angry and useless to give him time to do anything but try to please her, even if it meant letting _him_ stew in how useless he must have felt to not only have lost one of his daughters, but also see another one breaking down like this.

Pulling away from her father, Yang rubbed the tears out of her eye.

"...m'sorry." She muttered, turning away from him.

"Yang?"

"Let's just go home." Yang said. "Let's just... I'm sorry."

If she couldn't help Ruby right now, then the least she could do was try to stop being a burden on everyone else. She'd just need to deal with her uselessness herself and stop making it harder on her dad. That should be possible, at least. If she wasn't a total waste of space.

 **Time passes, and over then next week, Yang will find more clues regarding her sisters whereabouts. What does Yang find over the next week?**  
 **[X] Junior manages to find the location Five was renting. Yang and her father investigate it and find some clues.**  
 **[X] Qrow spots Melanie hiding out with some members of an unrelated gang, and takes Yang with him to beat some answers out of them.**

 **In addition to that, Yang... (Pick 2)**  
 **[X] Finds Two. Five was her sister, so Two might know something, or be able to help in some way.**  
 **[X] Repairs Ember Celica. She did have a backup she could use if she didn't, but if she did proper repairs, she might be able to do some upgrades too.**  
 **[X] Practices more weird spirit dream quest stuff with her Uncle.**  
 **[X] Gets ahead on her schoolwork. It'd let her take some time off if they don't find Ruby before break ended, and she might learn something useful.**  
 **[X] Finds Melanie's sister, Miltia. Her sister was the one who got hooked on addictive songs or whatever, she probably feels terrible too.**


	32. House Where Nobody Lives

**[X] Junior manages to find the location Five was renting. Yang and her father investigate it and find some clues.**  
 **[X] Repairs Ember Celica. She did have a backup she could use if she didn't, but if she did proper repairs, she might be able to do some upgrades too.**  
 **[X] Finds Melanie's sister, Miltia. Her sister was the one who got hooked on addictive songs or whatever, she probably feels terrible too.**

Standing by the table with a screwdriver in her hand, Yang slowly took apart her precious Ember Celica.

Yikes, that was a lot of damage. She was going to need to replace basically most of it.

Peeling away the plated metal covering the gauntlets, Yang reached for the ammo reel, and slowly removed it. Yep, busted. She'd need to pull the ammo out of that later, basically scrap the thing in order to get to it.

Reaching around, Yang pulled out a spare ammo loading mechanism, then paused.

Didn't Ruby mention having a few good ideas about tweaking Ember Celica?

Looking over the notes on the table, Yang looked for them, but then put the idea out of her mind for a moment. They weren't in easy reach, so she'd go look for whatever designs Ruby thought up after finding out all the problems Ember Celica had at that moment.

Prying into Ember Celica more, Yang removed the firing mechanism.

Hm. Not too bad. She'd need to unbolt it, replace some of the smaller parts, but most of it was fixable. Meanwhile, since she was pulling it out anyway, she may as well think improvements...

Reaching over to a draw, Yang pulled out a small case, and put it on the table next to her. Inside it, deconstructed and with theoretical design notes below it, was the gauntlet that the mercenary guy had almost killed her with back in the village.

She'd almost forgotten about it, but since she was upgrading her gauntlets anyway, perhaps she could take some inspiration. The firing mechanism, especially, Yang wanted to look into. It shouldn't be too hard to translate across. There were differences in design, but if Yang could get it working, well, that would be great. That gauntlet could shoot hard enough to send a projectile flying at immense velocity, and if Yang could get that working with Ember Celica, she'd be able to increase the power output of her shots by a lot.

Actually, hadn't one of Ruby's ideas been based on increasing the power of a shot? Something about unstable dust projectiles that could be used as a close-ranged power attack in addition to normal blows?

...Yeah, she definitely needed to look into Ruby's designs. She also mentioned more variety in shots, so maybe she could do that upgrade, and then set Ember Celica to fire in both ranged attacks, close ranged devastators, maybe a third choice for trick shots- Maybe she's actually remember to use those experimental ammo rounds she purchased before she left on the school trip- All sorts of things.

...Though that might be too many changed for now. For now, she should keep it simple. Replace the damaged parts, see if she could replicate the harpoon gauntlet's firing mechanism to work on more power shots...

Actually, she'd need to test it a bit first. Was the harpoon gauntlet's power type a version that would easily translate to dust projectiles like Yang's explosive shots? Or was it more designed on letting a long projectile like a harpoon travel faster, before the power of it could fade? Either way would be an improvement, but one of those was more useful for close-ranged power hits, while the other would be better if she tried to adapt it to longer ranged attacks...

Bah, needs some testing. She'll test the non-deconstructed gauntlet when she was done looking over everything else.

Turning Ember Celica around and removing the reloading mechanism to have a look behind it, Yang continued looking over Ember Celica for some time. It took her a while, but she was able to pinpoint everything she needed to fix, and got enough new parts to do so.

Nodding to herself as she stands up, Yang went over towards the far wall of the room. Somewhere in them, she'd find a list of notes and designs. Ruby probably would have written down any ideas she had while Yang was away but before she got kidnapped.

Pulling another draw open, Yang paused when she saw the designs stored in it. Slowly pulling out the sketches and designs.

It was a series of sketches of scythes, each with a bunch of little comments at the side. A few different ideas were dismissed here and there, leaving comments on what possible guns would be good with the scythe.

Ruby's weapon ideas. She was getting parts when Qrow had taken her out shopping, and she was very clearly excited about the idea of testing out what would work best for her. The notes were hurried, but obviously cheerful in tone. She'd been looking forward to it.

And now she was missing, god knows where, and nobody knew where she was.

...Damn it, she went and made herself depressed again.

Sighing to herself, Yang put away Ruby's notes and went to go put Ember Celica back together.

* * *

Standing in front of the apartment door, Yang knocked.

For a long while, nothing happened. No surprise. What happened must have been hard on her.

A moment passed, and Miltia Malachite opened the door. Her expression was blank.

"Hey." Yang began, awkwardly. "How are you?"

"Did Junior send you?" Miltia asked, ignoring Yang's own question.

"No." Yang replied. "It's just... Given that happened, I thought it'd do you good if someone popped in to say hi?"

"...Come in." Miltia stated. "You won't go away otherwise, right?"

Stepping away from the door, Miltia went out of sight. Yang stepped in a moment later.

The apartment was a good size, with a clearly visible living room, kitchen, door to a bathroom, and two more doors leading to separate bedrooms. Miltia, upon letting Yang in, moved straight to the kitchen, and looked through a cupboard for a moment.

"So..." Yang began awkwardly. "Are you doing alright?"

Miltia turned to Yang and looked at her for a moment.

"My sister has been brainwashing into some giggling lunatic." Miltia replied, echoing Yang's words from last night. "How do you think I'm feeling?"

"Okay, badly phrased." Yang replied, backpedalling. "But, well, do you want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly, no." Miltia replied.

"I'm just saying, Five's got my sister too, so I kind of understand-"

"You can still have hope for your sister." Miltia interrupted. "She hasn't been seen, so we don't know if Five's been singing to her. Melanie's hers, and we don't know if that can be reversed."

"You think it's easy, hoping it'll work out?" Yang snapped. "You think it's easy assuming the best case scenario for me?"

"Apparently so, if you've kept yourself together enough to go bother other people." Miltia cut back.

Yang took a step forward and was ready to give her response, but thought twice about it. Breathing to calm herself, Yang sighed.

"Sorry." Yang changed topic. "I'm just making things worse. It's not easy, you know. It's just... I want to feel like I'm helping, somehow."

Miltia didn't reply for a moment.

"...I didn't even notice." She said, after a moment. "My sister gets controlled like that, and I don't even notice there's anything different with how she's acting. She mentioned hearing a nice song, but I didn't think anything of it. Would I have been able to help her, before she got to the point of throwing you out a building just for a chance to hear more?"

Yang winced at that.

She'd had similar thoughts, since Ruby went missing. Wondering if she could have stopped it somehow, had she not been out of Vale at the time, if she had just been there. It was irrational, it was dumb, she'd probably feel worse if she had been there and failed, and it didn't stop hurting any more just because she knew it was dumb.

"I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert." Yang said. "I'm still having trouble working through my own issues. But... Well, I know what it's like, feeling what you are. If you need a hand feeling better, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. If you need to punch something, I'm good for a spare, if you need to talk to someone, I can listen. Either way, I'm good."

Silence hung over the crowd for a moment, before Miltia spoke up a bit.

"...Thanks, I guess." She said. "Maybe I'll be in touch. But... I just need some time to think, okay?"

"That's fine." Yang replied. "Just give me a call on my scroll if you need to send a message, okay?"

Pulling it out of her pocket, Yang tapped her scroll against the one resting on the bench of the kitchen, and the two traded numbers.

"Alright." Miltia replied.

"Well, be seeing you, then." Yang waved goodbye, as she left.

...Was that it? She was expecting something more, but...

...Well, Miltia needed time. That was fine. Junior was probably keeping watch on her to make sure she didn't do anything dumb, so she should be fine.

Nodding to herself and hoping that she'd be able to convince herself she did good here, Yang walked away.

* * *

Looking up at the small house with a chimney in front of her, Yang turned to her father.

"Are you gonna go up the stairs and have a look?" She asked. "Or are we gonna just stand around and _stair_ all day?

Taiyang smiled. "I like this spot. It's got a good view. Unless you want to get the door, ter."

Yang took a moment to process the daughter/door-ter pun before smiling. "Alright then, why don't you stand there while I give you some free punning lessons, on the house?"

Her father chuckled. "More seriously, though, look at the house again. What's wrong with the image?"

Yang looked up for a moment, following her father's gaze.

"...There's smoke coming out of the chimney." She noticed. "Which means people were in there recently."

"Good eye." Taiyang noted. "But at the same time, Melanie must have told people we were coming for them by now. And if this was an ambush, then they wouldn't have left the fireplace on like that. It's suspicious. Which is why I'm going to ask once if you'll stay in the car-"

"No."

"-And when that fails, ask you to stick close to me. If this is a trap, it'd be best if we spring it while we're together. More force, easier to help each other."

Yang shrugged. "Alright. I guess I could use meatshield."

Taiyang shook his head. "Kids these days. No respect. Probably hanging out with that old man Qrow all day, picking up his bad habits."

"He tells me stories." Yang confirmed. "Like how you used to be cool. What happened?"

"He was lying, even at my coolest he always called me a dork. And then your mother would beat me up and take my lunch money."

"My mum was awesome."

With a faked long-suffering sigh, Taiyang went up the stairs, and unlocked the door with a key that Junior had given them. Yang followed him, as they entered the building.

Beyond the cackling of flame, it was silent. Yang and her father kept that silence, as they looked around.

The house looked like a lot of stuff in it had been removed in a hurry. There were marks on the floor, from where furniture had been dragged or dropped. There was scraps of paper here and there, which Taiyang looked at before shaking his head. Over in the corner, Yang saw a book cover, for Ninjas of Love, in the corner with no book inside it.

There were rose petals scattered around, here and there.

"Ruby was here." Yang confirmed.

Taiyang lead the two of them into a room with a fireplace, where the fire was burning. Above the fireplace, there was a letter taped to the wall.

"Someone wanted to send us a message." Taiyang noted.

Yang stepped for it, but Taiyang caught her shoulder.

"Hold on." He said. "It could be a trap. Give me a moment to clear it, look elsewhere until then."

"Alright, then." Yang shrugged, scanning the rest of the room.

There was a collection of photos on an abandoned desk, in the building. Yang looked at them, wondering if any of them would be of use.

None of them had images that could incriminate someone. Rather, the pictures all seemed to be of a small town, one that looked like one inside the Kingdoms rather than one outside of it, and an old print-off of a photo Yang recognised. It was the Monster of Lake Pangxie, a thought mythical beast that hadn't been proven to exist since the photo was taken seventy years ago.

...Maybe a lead? I this Five person thought that a giant crab was a thing that was real, and the comments scrawled on the picture questioning how it tasted was any indication, then she might be leading there at some point.

Or it could be a false lead. Someone had left a message here, after all.

"Yang." Her father called, and Yang looked back to him holding a letter in his hand. "Got it."

"What's it say?"

Taiyang opened the pink envelope, and pulled the white paper out. Yang saw the brown writing for a moment, before he flipped it so he could see the words.

"Someone wants to meet us." He said. "Or, well, you, I guess. Too scared of me, I guess?"

He passed the letter to Yang, and she read it.

 _Yang Xiao Long. If you want to know where your sister is, meet me at the train station in two days, at 11. Come alone. When I see you, I will give you your ticket. If you do not come alone, I will not be able to help you, and you will never see Ruby Rose again._  
 _-A Concerned Citizen._

"It's a trap." Yang decided immediately.

"Totally a trap." Taiyang agreed.

A complete obvious trap, one a child could spot. Getting her alone, somewhere where people could get her out of anywhere people could help her. Who'd fall for that?

You'd need to be desperate to fall for that. Desperate, stupid, and willing to do anything.

...Fuck.

 **[X] Walk into the trap. Her father wouldn't approve of it, so sneak out when he's not watching and get there before him.**  
 **[X] Ignore it. You'll find Ruby without springing the obvious trap. Even if it means missing a potential opportunity.**


	33. Smooth Criminal

**[X] Walk into the trap. Her father wouldn't approve of it, so sneak out when he's not watching and get there before him.**

Two days later, and nothing to show for it.

Qrow had gone to investigate around Lake Pangxie? Nothing. His contacts monitoring public transport there and back? Not a clue. Yang and Taiyang investigating potential leads gained from Junior's compromised men? Waste of time.

Nothing was working. So when the day came where the letter had it's deadline, Yang was willing to give it a shot.

She hadn't given her father any sign that she was anything but dismissive of the likely trap. He wouldn't want her to go in alone. When he noticed her missing, he'll know where she went anyway. Besides, she had her scroll with her, and worse come to worse he'd just call some friends and track her down based off where her scroll's signal is.

If this had the slightest chance of helping Yang find Ruby, then it was a risk she was willing to take.

It was about ten when she went to bed, giving her an hour to get to the train station. She'd make it if she hurried, but first, she needed to make sure she threw her father off a bit.

Grabbing some spare pillows, Yang stuffed them under the sheets of her bed to make it look like someone as sleeping in it. She made sure to put a yellow pillowcase at the top of the bed, hanging out of the covers slightly, so that it could be mistaken for hair at a brief glance. It'd only really fool her dad if he just peeked in momentarily, but it could work for a little bit.

Sneaking out of her window, which had been left open earlier, Yang hung onto the side of the house as she pulled the window closed. She'd just enter the front door when she got home. She'd get yelled at for it, but by that point she wouldn't be able to be stopped.

Turning to the ground, Yang braced herself before she jumped. As she fell, she made sure to roll to try and bleed off momentum, thus minimising noise.

Turning back to the house for a moment, Yang noticed the light in the kitchen was still on. Her dad was getting a late night snack. She should be able to run far enough, then.

Keeping quiet until she thought she was out of earshot, Yang started running as soon as she was on the road.

It was a bit of a journey, getting back into the city, but Yang was able to make it. As soon as she was in the city, she darted into the first alleyway she could find, and pulled out her scroll to load a map.

She could just follow the main road to catch the train, but if her father noticed that she had sneaked out, he'd be looking there. So she'd take a more convoluted, roundabout path.

Setting one in stone, Yang continued moving.

This late at night, there weren't too many people on the streets. A lot of people had work in the morning and were getting to sleep. There were some drifters here and there, people going on walks and people wandering into random fast food places. The occasional suspicious-looking thug, but with Ember Celica at her side, Yang just had to keep her arms visible to keep most of them at bay.

Eventually, she got to the train station, without incident. It was at the border of town, and designed so that it had trains that could travel overland or, in emergancies, underground.

Apparently, the underground segments were originally designed to link up to Mountain Glenn, which used subterranean tunnels to avoid overland Grimm between it and the Kingdom, but after it had fallen, the station was redesigned to include the underground tunnels in case of emergencies only. The tunnels to Mountain Glenn itself were left unfinished, to avoid any Grimm wandering in.

Stepping into the station, Yang looked around. It only took a few minutes for someone to tap her on the shoulder.

The woman who had done so bore a resemblance to Yang, but with pink hair and multicoloured eyes. She winked and put a finger on her lips, as she passed Yang a ticket.

"Are you who I'm here to meet?" Yang asked, looking around the station. There were some people waiting, but not many.

The woman nodded, as a voice over the intercom announced a train pulling up. A train that would do a round trip of the city, hit the train station on the other side of it, then go out to the next town over. The same train mentioned on Yang's ticket.

"First stop?" She asked. The woman nodded.

"Hey." Yang asked. "Tell me how you kn-"

The woman put her finger on Yang's lips silently, stopping her from speaking, and grabbed Yang's hand. They walked towards the train, boarded it alongside two other people, and as they did so, the woman led Yang to the seats in the back, the whole segment of the train to themselves.

"Start talking." Yang growled. "How do you know about Ruby?"

The woman pulled out a scroll.

"Don't ignore me." Yang replied, grabbed the woman's shoulder. "I want to know-"

Yang's scroll beeped, and the woman gestured at it. Fuming silently, Yang picked it up to look at her new message, from an unlisted number.

 _Do you not understand the concept of mute people, or do you think a lack of speech can be overcome by being angry enough?_

Yang's eyes widened at the message.

"You're mute?" She asked. "Sorry, I didn'-"

Her scroll beeped again.

 _Communicate this way, don't want anyone over hearing us._

Frowning, Yang sat down, and started typing on her scroll herself.

 _Who are you?_ Yang sent. _How do you know about Ruby?_

The reply came quickly. _My boss will answer most of these questions. For now, just play Cranky Fowls or something, I don't care._

Yang frowned. _Just tell me how you know about Ruby, and why I should trust you?_

The reply came a moment later. _You should trust me because you've come this far and if you stop trusting me now, your father will be missing both of his daughters. If I was your enemy, you'd be dead already._

Yang looked up at the woman, anger in her eyes. "Try me-"

There was a shattering, and the woman was gone. Yang's eyes widened, and she looked around. Her scroll beeped again.

 _I'm in the carriage in front of you._ It read. _If you want to try me, come ahead. Or you can shut up, sit down, and be patient. We're almost at our stop._

Yang fumed, especially a she realise she recognised the shattering effect. It was what Qrow had said was used when Ruby went missing, and helped Melanie escape.

Damn it, she'd wandered into a trap with the person who took Ruby, and she was completely at their mercy now. She didn't have a choice, at this point. Sitting still, Yang hoped she hadn't made a terrible mistake.

Just to be sure, she flipped through her scroll's setting, and made sure Location Tracking was on. If her father came looking, he could probably pinpoint her location with it.

With that done, Yang sat down and fumed silently.

* * *

As the train pulled to a stop, the door to Yang's coach opened, and there was a brief blur a the figure on the other side changed to reveal the woman Yang had followed. Standing up, Yang followed her.

"I don't suppose I can have your name?"

The woman shook her head, as she led Yang off the train.

Once they were off it, the woman led Yang down a side alley, before entering a door to a run-down, probably abandoned building. Inside of it, there was a small room that barely filled any of the building Yang had seen from the outside, and a trap door leading down.

"Down we go?" Yang asked. The woman didn't answer, going down.

After a hesitant moment, Yang followed her.

Climbing the ladder down a few steps, Yang found herself in a torch-lit room, bigger than the room she had just been in, with a large map on the wall, and three chairs in the centre. Sitting in one and facing Yang was a red-haired man in a bowler hat.

"Ah, there you are." He greeted. "Neo, were you followed?"

The woman shattered, and as the fake appearance faded away, Yang got a good look at who had really been with her. She was short, with pink in her hair, alongside some brown.

"Sorry about the deception." The man greeted. "But, well, you know me. I'm not exactly the most trustworthy."

"...Who are you?" Yang asked.

The man frowned. "...Really? Man, I guess I'm not as famous as I thought. Though, given my occupation, that might be a good thing..."

"Get to the point." Yang growled. "What do you have to do with my sister's disappearance."

The man sighed. "My name is Roman." He greeted.

"I don't ca-"

"Rude." Roman dismissed. "I invite you to my home and prepare to make you an offer, and you treat me like criminal scum. Maybe I'll just not tell you anything."

Yang glared.

"You're a bit short-tempered." He noted. "Good, maybe you and Neo can get along-"

The midget started glaring too.

"-But for now, let's get to business. What do you know about Five?"

"She kidnapped my sister." Yang replied.

"Yes, yes, I don't care about that." Roman dismissed. "Tell me what you know about her abilities?"

"She can sing." Yang said. "Apparently it's addictive or something?"

"Like you wouldn't believe." Roman replied. "And she's made it a habit, too, of singing for anyone who does a job for her. She gets them hooked, and then uses that to get her claws in them, make them hers. Loyal to her, tied to her, willing to do anything to hear her little song again."

Yang looked at him for a moment. "...Your friend helped Five kidnap my sister."

"Technically-"

"She's addicted to her song too." Yang finished the thought.

Roman clicked and pointed at Yang. "Hey, I guess those blonde jokes aren't accurate after all, you do have half a brain."

Yang looked at Neo, and took a step back.

"She's not going to attack you." Roman sighed. "I take back what I said about your brain. If we wanted you dead, we'd have done it on the train. You've seen Neo's illusions, you know she could have killed you before anyone else could help you."

"Why-"

Roman held up a hand. "Listen, just let me finish, okay? I've kind of been on edge for a while. Care to guess why?"

Yang looked at him. "...You're addicted too, aren't you?"

"And it's been a while since I got to hear that song." He admitted. "And personally, I'm a little pissed off. Never did drugs because I never wanted to be dependent on something, and then I get tricked into being an addict anyway."

"So why are you inviting me here, then?" Yang asked.

"Because I'm not happy with Five." Roman replied. "And this sucks, because if she gets arrested, I'll likely end up turning myself in once the withdrawal gets too bad. But I don't want her to win. Me and Neo've been working for her for too long, it's about time someone taught her that actions have consequences."

"You're turning on Five?" Yang asked.

Roman looked at her. "No, we're throwing her a birthday party, and want you to make the cake."

"Jeez, no need to be sarcasti-"

"It's been three days since I heard her song." Roman interrupted. "I can almost imagine it echoing right now. I want it, so, so badly. And you're making it all the more tempting to just give you to Five so she'll reward us. Don't push me, blondie."

Yang shut her mouth.

"Listen." Roman continued. "I want to help. I want to see Five pay for this. I'd like to avoid jail if possible, so negotiations are on the table if you want. I just want you to go pass a message on to the big-shot Hunter relatives of yours that could beat me up with ease, and I want you to give them my information and offer."

"Offer?"

"We'll get to that." Roman said. "Neo, mind getting the map?"

The girl with pink eyes nodded, and moved next to the map on the wall, quickly circling three areas.

"I'm not sure where Five is." Roman admitted. "But before she fled the city, there were three things she was talking about. First."

Neo pointed at an area far away from the city, near a lake.

"Lake Pangxie. She heard rumours of a giant crab and wondered what it tasted like. Second."

Neo pointed at an area outside the border of the Kingdoms.

"Mountain Glenn. Apparently, she's wondering if they have recipes there that would be good to rediscover. Third."

Neo pointed somewhere close to the city on the map.

"This one's the big one. Beacon. They have good food, you know. Five does. She wants to break in. They make good delicacies from the other Kingdoms there, and as I hope we've established, Five likes food."

"Beacon?" Yang asked. "She's going to wander into an area full of Hunters, students and teachers?"

"Oh, no, she's not wandering." Roman replied. "She had Neo help her get in earlier, break into a dorm and sing a little song there. Five's currently in the process of seeding her influence into the student body, so she can get people to smuggle her food."

Yang paled. "What?"

"We don't know where Five is now. She could be hiding in Beacon with her addicted minions, but I doubt she got in without Neo. Still, someone there might be able to point you to Five."

"I..." Yang trailed off. "That's-"

"You might want to pass that along." Roman noted. "I'm not entirely sure, but usually, school's like to hear it when their students have a drug problem?"

"Why should I believe you?" Yang asked.

"What do I gain from lying?" He responded. "I mean, yeah, you'd waste some time looking, but now you know I'm involved. If I was your enemy, I could have just told you nothing. Go tell people and see if it can be confirmed if you want."

Yang looked at him, and Roman looked back.

"What's the offer?" Yang asked, after a moment.

"A potential lead." Roman replied. "Eventually, Five's gonna call us up and offer us her song again. Give us out hit so we don't go mad trying to get it. She'll have to give away her location, then."

"And you'll give it to me?" Yang asked.

"Maybe." Roman replied. "Go ask your father. If he's willing to argue for a reduced sentence on my behalf, maybe parole or something so I don't end up in a cell, I'll be willing to tell you when I'm heading to Five."

"How long do you think it'll be before Five contacts you?" Yang asked.

"Not sure. Though, you should know, if we don't have a deal by the time she does, then chances are, once she sings to me a little bit, I'll be too grateful for my hit to help you guys out. It's a funny thing, that song. You feel great when you get it, so if she asks me anything, I'll probably sing more than she does. Then she'll know I sold her out, maybe make sure I'm in her thrall too much to help you anymore, and anything I told you gets compromised."

"So you're only useful on a time limit."

Roman shrugged. "Hey, this stuff is better than nothing, right? Worse come to worse, you have that little tidbit about Beacon students to work with now."

"...I'll ask dad." Yang replied. "Neo sent me a message on the train, so I'll message her with any deals I can get him to agree too."

"Good, good." Roman replied. "I'll have her send you a message once we go see Five, so you at least know when I won't be of any more use to knocking her down a peg."

"Can I leave now, then?" Yang asked.

"Go ahead." Roman replied. "Actually, wait here a moment, I'm leaving first. Don't want you standing at the door and turning us into the cops to get more information out of us. Don't blame me for not trusting you, but I'm a little bit fucked if you betray me, so I'd prefer being cautious here."

And with that, Roman stood. Neo followed him as he left, and the two of them left Yang by herself.

 **When Yang tells her father about this incident...**

 **[X] She pushes him to accept Roman's offer of being led straight to Five.**  
 **[X] She suggests ignoring the offer and focusing on...**  
 **-[X] Getting information out of Beacon students**  
 **-[X] Searching Mountain Glenn**  
 **-[X] Looking into Lake Pangxie some more.**


	34. Know Your Enemy

**[X] She pushes him to accept Roman's offer of being led straight to Five.**

Squeaking open the front door slowly, as quietly as she could, Yang step in softly, trying to not make any noise. If her father was asleep, it'd be best to not wake him up and get in trouble until the morning.

She didn't bother turning on the light, and locked the door behind her as she entered. Sneaking towards the stairs up to her room, Yang tried to get up the stairs, skipping over the third from the bottom stair. It had a tendency to squeak for some reason, so it'd make too much noise.

As she approached the top of the stairs, Yang went to her room-

The door to her room was open.

"...I'm grounded forever, aren't I?" She asked.

Taiyang stuck his head out the door from her room. "As a lower estimate, yes."

"In my defence." Yang defended. "It all worked out in the end."

"That's nice. I hope you're not overly attached to being able to see the sun."

"Yes, because I stare at it so often right now, don't I?"

Taiyang gave her a look.

"Can I at least pass on the information I got?" Yang asked. "Because it turns out it wasn't a trap."

"That remains to be seen." Her father replied.

"Turns out that Five's minions aren't too happy with her." Yang continued. "A guy called Roman Torchwick and some midget called Neo apparently weren't overly happy about being tricked into addiction and are willing to sell Five out if we negotiate their sentencing or something"

"Oh really?" Taiyang asked.

"Apparently, they don't know where Five is right now." Yang continued. "But they expect her to call them in soon for the next hit of her song, and are willing to let us know so we can follow them."

"And you trust them?" Taiyang asked.

"Neo's Semblance was some sort of illusion nonsense." Yang replied. "That shattering stuff? That's her. She had me dead to rights. If that was a trap of some sorts, I'd be dead or captured. I think they're trustworthy."

Taiyang sighed. "I assume you have some method of communicating with them, if they mentioned negotiation?"

"Neo was mute and texted me to talk." Yang explained ."So I have her number on my scroll."

Grumbling to himself, Yang's father looked at her. "It's past midnight. Go to sleep. I'll contact your uncle in the morning, we'll talk about it then."

Yang nodded, as she headed into her room. As her father left it, Yang paused.

"Hold on, before I forget." She started. "This seemed kinda important. Apparently, Five went and got some Beacon students addicted to her song?"

Taiyang froze himself.

"That seemed like the sort of thing that would be important." Yang continued.

Her father nodded. "...Yeah. Looks like I'm gonna have to call Ozpin in the morning as well..."

"That was all Torchwick mentioned, though. Well, that and some of Five's goals. All of them involving getting food, apparently. Stuff from the lake Qrow was watching, Mountain Glenn, and Beacon."

Taiyang nodded. "Nothing too important, then?"

"Nothing."

"Goodnight, Yang."

"Night."

Wandering over to her bed, Yang just collapsed over the sheets, not even bothering to change into something more comfortable, and started working on sleeping.

* * *

 _The rolling wheels echoed through the woods, as Yang pulled them forward. All around her, red eyes were staring, angry and hungry. Just out of reach, the silhouette with black hair was just out of reach._

 _A word fell from her lips, but Yang couldn't hear what she was saying. The silhouette paused, looking back, and a smile briefly came into view._

 _Then she shattered, and Melanie appeared with a smile. Yang took a step back, before realising her hands weren't holding the cart anymore._

 _She turned around, and what part of her was capable of thought recognised some aspects of the dream. She'd had them independently. Last time she had it, she'd lost the cart Ruby was resting in, and found her just as the Grimm converged-_

 _Even as she realised that, the dream continued, and Yang watched herself run, screaming for her sister. A desperate, pathetic cry. How sad._

 _The red eyes staring at her parted, as the woods opened up, and Yang saw her sister looking away at something. For a moment, she couldn't help but feel relief, as she spoke to her sister._

 _Then she looked back with red eyes and began to sing, and the scythe was through Yang's chest before she could react-_

Awakening with a scream, Yang panted for a moment, before wiping sweat off of her brow.

...Another nightmare. She was having a lot of those recently.

Controlling her breathing for a moment, Yang hoped that her father hadn't heard anything. She didn't need him knowing how bad she was doing. She wasn't going to be a burden on him again. She was going to get over it, save Ruby, and make everything better.

She didn't have time to worry about herself yet.

Jumping out of bed, Yang went to have a shower, before breakfast.

* * *

Yang, her father, and her uncle were all seated around the table. Qrow pulled out his scroll, while a number dialled up, and Yang frantically prepared her scroll to contact Neo.

"Weren't you near Lake Pangxie, Qrow?" Yang asked. "How'd you get back here so soon?"

"Trade secret."

"The trains don't even start going back and forth for another hour-"

"Trade. Secret."

Yang sighed. Her dad still didn't know she was learning Qrow's little tricks, and they hadn't practised in a while, so they couldn't really talk about it around him, but Qrow was still insufferable with how he was hinting at everything he did having some sort of weird trick behind it.

Eventually, Qrow's tablet responded. "Hello?"

"Hey, Ozpin." Qrow muttered. "My brother-in-law should've sent you the information, right?"

"Indeed." The old man's voice responded. "So you've gotten in contact with Roman Torchwick?"

At which point, Yang's scroll beeped. "Hello, blondie?"

"You wanted negotiations." Yang said. "Here, talk to my dad, my uncle, and..."

She looked up. "Is Ozpin his first name or last name?"

"Ozpin?" Roman asked. "Ah, you've got contacts, I see."

"Mister Torchwick." Ozpin began. "I've been told the situation concerning the woman calling herself Five, but the information I was passed late last night is concerning. How do you know that Five has influenced Beacon students?"

"I saw them." The criminal replied. "Two of them, at the time. A Faunus and a proper human, carrying a bunch of food-"

"Roman." Ozpin interrupted. "I would appreciate it if you didn't define the non-Faunus student of mine as a 'Proper' human."

"Is this really worth interrupting me over?" Torchwick asked. "Really?"

"Forgive me, but I won't stand for a student of mine being insulted like that."

Torchwick sighed. "Fine. Two schoolgirls wandered in and traded food for drug music. Anything you can get from that?"

Ozpin paused for a moment. "I have noticed that there have been students who have sought to take food from the cafeteria and store it for later use, but I would need to go through some records to find out which two had time to leave Beacon and give this food to this Five person afterwards."

"Well, don't bother, old man. Five's setting up the meeting tomorrow morning, so just keep an eye open for who leaves at midnight."

"Tomorrow?" Yang asked. "How early?"

"Before sunrise." Roman replied. "Turns out, she's not too far out of the city. But she _has_ gotten herself an airship so she can leave in a hurry. Apparently, she's preparing resources to get to Mountain Glenn so she can set up base there."

"Hm..." Qrow pondered. "You might have given away too much information there, Torchwick. What's stopping us from just abandoning you and going to Mountain Glenn and waiting for Five?"

"I think I made it clear to blondie that I'm a spiteful person." Roman replied. "If you leave me to my fate, I'm selling you out. And don't think you can stop me before then, even if you do know Neo's Semblance, you won't be getting around it."

He paused, and then chuckled. "Besides, do you really want to leave dear Ruby in Five's clutches for much longer? There's still a chance that Ruby hasn't gotten addicted to that song, if she knew in advance that it was a bad thing. How much longer do you want to risk that lasting?"

Yang's fist clenched. "You fu-"

Taiyang put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down, Yang."

Yang closed her eyes, and breathed heavily.

"You really need to work on that temper, blondie." Torchwick tutted. "Even the addict's holding it better than you."

"We've gone off track." Ozpin noted. "Torchwick, are you aware of Five's current location?"

"Beyond what I told you? Nope." The criminal sounded like he might have been shrugging. "She's going to send a minion to show me and Neo the way. Some shit called Dito? Not sure if you've heard of him, but he's a real asshole, I'll tell you that much."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the name." Ozpin noted. "Though, speaking of, I do believe we're at a disadvantage in regards to Five's current abilities. Soon, we could end up facing a situation where conflict breaks out. When that happens, any nasty surprises from Five could be... Dangerous."

"Hold on a moment." Torchwick interrupted. "You guys are forgetting something. Namely, what am _I_ getting out of all of this? Me and Neo, we need something to make it worth our while."

"Ah, yes." Ozpin interrupted. "I have some influence over the legal system, and it is policy to rule softer on criminals who co-operate under circumstances like this. While I don't have your criminal records on me, I wouldn't be surprised if you helping bring down Five could lead to a complete pardon of anything done under her orders. Perhaps even to your previous crimes, if you assist enough."

"Now that sounds promising." Torchwick agreed. "But there is also a bigger concern on my mind."

"You mean Five's song?" Ozpin asked. "What Qrow has told us is still being investigated, but from what we have gathered, it may be dangerous to keep you from hearing the song for too long. If need be, however, we could allow you to visit Five upon her arrest."

"I was more hoping for something that wouldn't make me dependent on the Government and I seeing eye to eye."

"That will be looked into." Ozpin confirmed. "We may need to examine you in order to determine if it is possible to remove the addiction."

"Good enough, I suppose." Torchwick grumbled. "Well, I can't tell you much regarding what Five can do. From what she says, her song can do a lot more than just make people stronger and get them addicted."

"Hold on." Yang interrupted. "I've got a question to ask, real fast."

"Sure, just interrupt me, it's not like I'm saying anything important."

Yang ignored him. "This song stuff, it sounds familiar. While I was out on the school trip, I met a woman named Two, who had a similar ability, and claimed to have a sister named Five. I mentioned it before, and I didn't think it was important, but Two managed to use her song block projectiles. If Five says she can do more than make addicts, it's possible their Semblances might be identical, like a Schnee."

"Okay, tell me more about this." Torchwick interrupted. "Because if she can scratch that itch so I don't need to see Five, that changes some things."

"She's in Vale now." Yang confirmed. "Looking after some orphans. I think she was planning on moving to Atlas soon or something? I think Winter was going to help her take care of her orphans or something."

"Okay, this changes things." Roman confirmed. "If I can see this Two person today, convince them to give me a hit, I can mislead Five a bit. Might be able to not sell you out when I'm high on Song, and we can play the long game. Set an ambush at Mountain Glenn instead of going all out."

"And Ruby?" Yang asked. "You said earlier that leaving her in Five's clutches was bad."

"Oh, right, forgot to say." Roman suddenly recalled. "I _completely_ forgot when it was convenient not to let you know, but apparently your little red sister's been giving Five some trouble in that regards. From the sounds of things, Five's legitimately curious as to why she's not breaking. So your sister's totally fine."

Yang frowned. "Hold on. How do we know you're not lying? Why would Ruby not be affected?"

There was silence for a moment, before Ozpin interrupted.

"Miss Xiao Long..." He began. "Technically speaking, my theory regarding that is classified information, but how many people have you met with Silver Eyes?"

Yang frowned. "...Not many."

"If it was anyone apart from Ruby, I would be surprised." Ozpin continued. "There's a certain... Significance, to that eye colour. I can't explain in more detail, but rest assured, if Ruby really was immune to this addictive song, I would not be shocked."

"See, totally legit." Torchwick continued. "It's such a shame I conveniently forgot when it suited me best. Laying a trap at Mountain Glenn could work."

"We'll think about it." Taiyang interrupted. "But for now, you were talking about abilities?"

"I've never seen Five fight." Roman continued. "Nor her little shit, Dito. He carries around a spear, though, and they might have a special trick they can pull off if one's in earshot of the other? Probably Dito in earshot of Five, given the Song Semblance thing. Other than that, have no idea what he does."

"Are there any more minions we should keep an eye out for?"

"Well, you guys know about Melanie." Torchwick continued. "Not sure what her Semblance is either. Probably something to compensate for her lack of shooting weapon."

Yang frowned. "Come to think of it, she never used it in her fight against me..."

"So maybe it's something that has a consequence of being used." Roman supplied. "Or maybe she was just really confident she could beat you, or was holding it back so nobody could figure it out in a fight that really didn't matter that much."

"Anyone else?" Yang asked.

"A few guys." Roman replied. "Those Beacon students, if Ozpin doesn't catch them before they leave. Other then that, nobody I know about. No Semblances, no weapons."

"So how're we doing this?" Qrow asked. "If we introduce Roman to Two and try this plan, we could ambush them at Mountain Glenn. Five's forces would be split up when they get there, and if mister criminal scum-"

"I prefer mastermind-"

"Criminal scum." Qrow repeated. "Is able to keep his thoughts together better because of it, it means we might be able to rely on him in the final fight. Assuming he's telling the truth about Ruby being immune, it's a good plan."

"If Two can be trusted." Yang interrupted. "I mean, don't get me wrong, she was a good person, but she's a bit... Too trusting, I think? She might assume Five's just misunderstood and interfere, and that could cause problems."

"You're the one here who knows Two, Yang." Ozpin interrupted. "Do you think she can be trusted?"

Yang thought on it, for a moment.

 **[X] No. She's too much of an unknown, as is her relation to Five. Follow Roman and ambush Five on her airship.**  
 **[X] Yes. Worse come to worse, she'll see Five's in the wrong and try to fix it. She's worth the risk.**

 **By default, Yang, Taiyang and Qrow will be on this plan. If Two is trusted, she and Cent will as well, not to mention Roman and Neo. Are more reinforcements available? (Pick 2, unless you vote No)**

 **[X] No. Only the people listed above will engage Five.**  
 **[X] Ozpin sends one of his teachers.**  
 **-[X] Glynda Goodwitch**  
 **-[X] Peter Port**  
 **-[X] Bartholomew Oobleck**  
 **[X] Miltia would want to be involved, in only to see her sister, and she'd probably know her sister's Semblance too.**  
 **[X] Roman claims that there's an assassin for hire in the city who'll do any job for the pay, as long as he thinks he can get away. Have Roman hire him.**  
 **[X] Ren and Nora would help if Two does. Maybe ask them along? They seemed decently powerful. (Only if Two is trusted)**


	35. Sisters

**[X] Yes. Worse come to worse, she'll see Five's in the wrong and try to fix it. She's worth the risk.**  
 **[X] Ozpin sends one of his teachers.**  
 **-[X] Peter Port**  
 **[X] Miltia would want to be involved, in only to see her sister, and she'd probably know her sister's Semblance too.**

Walking past a tree with a flock of white birds gathering in it, Yang approached the house, and stopped to look back as she reached the front door.

She had... Quite a crowd, with her. Her dad, Torchwick, Neo, and her uncle Qrow had all gathered to make sure nothing could possibly go wrong with the talk with Two. Well, her dad and Qrow were. Torchwick and Neo just wanted to be around in case Two could actually get them their hit.

Yang was fairly sure they weren't actually standing where she thought they were standing, and were probably like five meters back or something, considering how they were actually around some of the people who could beat them up now. Yang couldn't blame them as long as they were being useful, because she didn't want to make the rescue efforts harder by making team unity difficult, but she could still grumble about how they'd gotten Ruby kidnapped in the first place.

Turning back to the door, Yang knocked three times.

There was a thud from inside, followed by some footsteps, and a shattering sound. The footsteps stopped.

A moment passed, and Yang knocked again, louder. The birds on the nearby trees were startled at the noise, and some flew off, though most came back after noticing the noise was nowhere near them.

A moment passed, and a small child looked up at her.

"Oh!" He said ."I 'member you! You're the lady who was at the place and did the thing!"

"That sounds like something I did." Yang confirmed. "Is Two here?"

The boy nodded. "Auntie Two just knocked over a vase so Cent asked me to check the door. I'm a go tell her you're here!"

He closed the door, and ran off. A moment later, there was the thunder of footsteps, and the door was suddenly ripped off of it's hinges.

Two looked at the door in her hand for a moment.

"T-Twice in ten seconds..." She muttered to herself. "Why am I so terrible..."

"Hey, hey." Said Cent, as he slid into view. "It's alright, it's alright. I needed something to do tonight besides you, I can fix this."

Two went bright red, and Taiyang stepped forward to put his hands around Yang's ears.

Oh, for goodness sake, her father knew she wasn't a child, he just did this to be annoying.

A moment later, after Two's embarrassed reaction to Cent's comment, he stepped away and Yang cleared her throat.

Two looked at her. "Oh, right, Yang!"

She lunged forward, and pulled Yang into a tight hug. "It's been so long, are you alright, how have you been? You left the airship in a hurry with the weird scruffly looking bird man and looked sad, did something happen?"

"Bird man?" Qrow asked.

Two ignored him. "Is everything okay, do you want to come in, I can cook up some pancakes, Ren and Nora came over a bit and Ren taught me this good recipe I want to try out-"

"Breath..." Yang wheezed, and Two backed up.

"Sorry..." She gave an embarrassed laugh. "I get a bit excited, people say sometime. Cent told me you were coming so I've been overexcited for a bit."

"...How did Cent find out?" Taiyang asked. Two ignored him.

"So, how's it been?" Two asked.

"...Not that good, to be honest." Yang admitted.

Two looked at her for a moment, before grabbing Yang's arm and pulling.

"Hey, wha-"

"You're coming in." Two said. "You're sitting down. I'll make you hot chocolate. You'll drink and tell me what's wrong and we'll make it all better like that. Okay? Okay."

"What about everyone with me?"

Two paused, and looked back at them.

"They can have hot chocolate too." Two decided. "Cent, go look after the kids!"

The man in black nodded. "Whatever you say, m'lady."

"S-Stop treating me so formally!" Two insisted. "It's embarrassing..."

Cent smiled. "Ah, but you're so cute when you're red in the face, my lady."

Two pouted. "Stop that..."

Chuckling to himself, Cent went off down a side path.

"Follow me!" Two demanded, as she dragged Yang down the hallway. Eventually, they reached a small room with a couple of couches, and Two pushed Yang on a one-seat chair.

"Sit." Two said, as everyone followed and started taking their seats. Torchwick and Neo remained near the entryway, at least as far as Yang could tell while depending on her senses. Which were somewhat unreliable considering who she was around.

She was really glad that Neo was kinda sorta on her side right now. That dumb illusion stuff was annoying enough when enemies were escaping because of it, trying to fight it must be a nightmare.

"The kitchen's the next room over, so just talk to me while I make the things!" Two told her. "Don't worry about being rude, it'll be easier like this."

"...Okay." Yang said. "Oh, introductions. This is my dad, my uncle, and some losers."

Neo glared at Yang.

"Nice to meet you!" Two waved. "I'm Two."

"It's good to meet you, Two." Yang's father said. "If you don't mind, can we ask some questions-"

Two skipped off into the next room, and there was the sound of opening cupboards.

"Some questions?" Two asked. "Like? Is this related to whatever Yang's being going through?"

A kettle started boiling, so Yang spoke up. "My sister's been kidnapped."

There was a gasp, and Two immediately ran back into the room to look at Yang.

"Your sister? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Do you know where she is? Who took her? Is she-"

"Who took her?" Roman spoke up suddenly. "Well, funny you shoudl say that. I think you might know the culprit. About this high, blonde hair, flaunts what she has, calls herself Five?"

Two froze.

"She's a real peace of work." Torchwick continued. "You know, she's been going around dealing with criminals, using her Semblance to get some people addicted to her singing, make them do her bidding so she can steal food and people..."

Two turned to face him. "Y-You... No, Five wouldn't..."

"I'm sorry." Yang spoke up. "But... Well, he's right. Everything we've got points towards-"

"Show me." Two said softly. "You have proof, don't you? Show me."

Qrow pulled out his scroll, tapped a few buttons, and put it in front of Two.

The only sound to be heard was the whistle of a kettle.

"This..." She said. "Why would you do that, Five? Why..."

Two looked away, rubbing some tears out of her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Yang asked.

"m'fine." Two replied. "Why're you asking me? You're the one who's sister is missing! You must be so sad-"

"I'm okay." Yang said, as Two suddenly looked up aggressively. "A-Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm good!" Two declared. "This... Five's just acting out a little bit. I need to be the responsible big sister now and bring her in line!"

"You're going to help?" Yang asked. "That's... Well, good. We have a plan, we just need-"

"Me and Neo got a hit of your sister's drug music." Torchwick spoke up suddenly. "We're told you might have a similar trick up your sleeve."

Two looked over at him. "...Huh?"

"I'll use small words." Torchwick tried. "Your sister bad. Use bad song. Me and Neo need song now. You have song maybe. Sing?"

Two frowned. "I'm not a child..."

"Let's not fight." Taiyang spoke up. "Two, please. If you can do anything about these two, they can help us save my daughter more than they already have. Do you think you can use your song to do... Whatever Five did?"

"Let me look." Two said, getting really close to Torchwick's face all of a sudden.

"I'm starting to feel like you're not entirely familiar with the concept of 'Personal Space'. You see, when a person-"

Two poked Roman in between his eyes, and his Aura flared up, flowing white for a moment.

"There we go." Two said. "Maybe if I did it like that... Oh, but my Song's so hard to manage like that... Maybe if I had Cent help me manage it?"

Neo waved a hand in front of Two, and the blue-haired woman pulled back suddenly, surprised.

"That's better." Roman grumbled. "Now, can you help? Yes or no?"

"I think I can?" Two asked. "I mean, this is more One or Three's things. Three's the one who knows stuff, and One can do anything. But if Five can do it, then I have to do it too, right? I mean, I'm the big sister, I need to be able to set a good example, right?"

"I'm not going to try and follow your logic." Torchwick dismissed. "Just get me hooked up."

Two nodded.

"If that's settled." Yang spoke up. "I think I need to pay someone else a visit."

Everyone turned to her.

"One of the other people under Five's influence has a sister too." Yang explained. "Miltia Malachite. She'd want to know we were doing something so she can go and save Melanie, like I'm going to save Ruby. I'm going to go tell her now."

"Alright, I guess." Taiyang sighed. "Qrow, didn't you need to do something too?"

"Hire out an airship." He noted. "Tell Peter where we're meeting. See if I can get Ozpin to give me some missiles for the airship thing."

He stood and left, and Two watched him go.

"Bye, Bird Man!" Two called.

"Why do you call him Bird Man?" Yang asked. "You know he's not an actual crow, right?"

Two looked at her. "It's not obvious? He's-"

"You should probably go see Miltia, Yang." Taiyang interrupted. "I mean, the sooner the better, right?"

Yang nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. See you later, guys."

"Bye!" Two waved.

* * *

Miltia wasn't at her apartment. Yang gave her a text to see where she was, and Miltia responded quickly for Yang to meet her in Junior's club. Apparently, it was closed right now. Middle of the day, needed cleaning, and Junior was short on staff after clearing out those Five compromised.

As Yang stepped into Junior's bar, passing a bodyguard who unlocked the door for her in the process, she heard the sound of combat.

On the dance floor, Miltia and Junior were battling. Junior's movements weren't the most professional, as he swung the baseball bat, but his weapon seemed tough enough, and Miltia was barely avoiding each hit as she sliced at Junior.

Speed versus Strength, maybe? Or maybe Miltia was more skill. Junior wasn't bad, but he seemed more focus on getting a hit in than anything. Though he was doing good deflected Miltia. Maybe. Feet fighting was hard.

Miltia slipped behind Junior and sliced at his throat, hitting his Aura again, and Junior dropped his weapon.

"Time." He called. "I'm getting low enough. Besides, your guest is here."

Miltia looked over at Yang.

"Xiao Long." She spat, bitterly. "Get over here. I need to kick something."

"Bad day?" Yang asked, as she took off her jacket and prepared Ember Celica.

"Melanie's birthday." She replied.

...Oh.

"Do you want me to try and hit you, or-"

"If I wanted a punching bag, I'd get one." Miltia replied. "You hit me, I hit you, we'll talk while we fight."

Yang nodded.

"No shooting!" Junior called. "Do you know how much repairs cost?"

Yang sighed, and quickly fiddling with Ember Celica, removing her ammo and leaving it on her jacket as she stepped onto the dance floor.

Miltia struck first, leaping at Yang and kicking forward with one foot. A predictable attack, fortunately. Yang caught her leg and slammed her into the ground.

"We've come up with a plan to find Five." Yang explained. "Sources tell us she's heading to Mountain Glenn tomorrow morning. Like, early. Me, dad, Qrow, some others, we're heading there to lay an ambush."

"That's nice for you." Miltia replied, as she hooked a leg around Yang's neck and brought her down, leaping up as she did so to reverse their positions. "Melanie?"

"With Five, most likely." Yang replied. "It's been a week. More than that. You haven't found her, my Uncle hasn't found her, nobodies found her, so Five's our best bet of finding her."

"And you want me to go." Miltia asked, as she kicked Yang up. Yang flipped out of the way of Miltia's next few attacks, getting her footing, then desperately started fending off Miltia's flurry of leg movements.

"I thought you might want to." Yang replied, as she fell for one of Miltia's feints, moving too far to defend from an attack that wasn't coming and letting Miltia get a good hit at her stomach. "I know how you feel, kinda. It might make you feel better if you're helping stop Five and getting Melanie back."

Miltia considered this, as she kicked Yang in the chin. "Melanie won't let you stop Five, will she?"

"I doubt it." Yang confirmed, as she abandoned defence and slugged Miltia in the face.

Miltia took a step back as her Aura struggled to support her. "I don't know if I can..."

"If you can oppose her?" Yang asked. "It's fine if you don't want to. Five's apparently going to have people spread out in Mountain Glenn. We can just send you elsewhere if you don't want to have to fight your sister."

"Then what's the point in going?" Miltia asked. "I don't care about Five or your sister. I just want mine back."

"...Fair enough." Yang sighed. "I can't force you to come. But the invitation's open."

Miltia's hand trembled for a moment, as it curled into a fist.

"...Are you oka-"

"Damn it!"

The normally soft spoken girl screamed, and a sudden roundhouse kick force Yang to the ground. Furiously, Miltia started slamming her bladed heel into Yang's side.

"Why can't it be easy?" She asked, as she repeatedly stabbed at Yang's Aura. "I just... I just want my sister back. I want this to be over. I can't fight her, but I can't do nothing. What do I do? I don't know what to do, Melanie. You were always the one who..."

She trailed off, as she realised Yang wasn't resisting.

"Feel better?" Yang asked. "Sorry, I know you didn't want a punching bag, but you seemed like you needed that."

Miltia rubbed her palms over her eyes. "...Maybe, yeah."

Yang stood up, stretching momentarily.

"What time are you leaving?" Miltia asked.

Yang turned to her. "You're coming?"

"If I can't go through with it, I'm stopping." Miltia replied. "But maybe I can do something..."

Yang smiled. "Good to hear. I'll give you a call when dad says what time we're leaving."

Miltia took a shuddered breath. "Thanks."

* * *

It was seven thirty, when Yang stood in from of the airship. Two and Cent were talking as they boarded.

"I'm just worried." Two said. "I know Ren and Nora are good people, but can they handle the kids until we get back?"

"They'll be fine." Cent replied. "That Ren guy has his head screwed on right. As opposed to screwed on left, like most people, which is why they so easily loose their cool."

"...Huh?"

"Haven't I told you before? The spine and the skull are connected by a screw which can connect either way. The term 'Head screwed on right' came from the fact that it's scientifically proven that if your head screws on tighter going right, you're a more calm, collected, and rational person."

Two laughed as she and Cent left Yang's field of view. Miltia watched them for a moment, then boarded the airship, very specifically taking a completely different path.

Qrow sat down next to Yang, and reached into his coat, before reconsidering and sighed.

"Don't want to be hungover tomorrow." He muttered. "I'm going to be following Torchwick and his mini-criminal. Make sure we don't get stabbed in the back."

"Be careful." Taiyang said. "Even with your tricks and Neo's Semblance, we all know how bad your luck is."

Yang looked towards them. "You've mentioned Qrow's luck a lot, but I don't think I've ever heard any stories. Any good ones."

Qrow sighed. "Look, kid, you know how people always say don't walk under ladders? That's not a dare to line up fifty of them and stroll through like you own the place, while kicking black cats and shattering mirrors."

"In fairness." Taiyang spoke up. "The mirrors weren't his fault, it was before we realised his reflection was that bad."

"Ha ha ha." Qrow mock laughed. "When's Peter get here?"

"Sorry for the delay!" A voice suddenly spoke up. "I was preparing my students for evaluation battles. The Minos had nearly broken containment, after I tried so hard to capture one alive for my students to admire. But no worry. Kerry is sealed away safely now."

Yang looked at the speaker, a somewhat overweight man with a bushy moustache and a blunderbuss in his hands.

"Why, it reminds me of my youth. Me and the old boys, before we made it through Beacon, we decided to pay the bills by forming a boyband you know? Teenagers all over the planet were heartbroken when we broke up the band to focus on our main careers..."

Yang looked over at Qrow. "Are you sure this is Ozpin's helper?"

"You seem to be doubting Port's prowess." Qrow noted, with a smile.

Taiyang saw that smile, and started sweating. "Qrow, no, you don't have to do this-"

"Hey Peter!" Qrow called. "I don't think Yang here has heard the story about the deathmatch, and how you ended it with minima-"

"Ah! Don't spoil it for the young girl, please." Peter Port said. "I'll be sure to inform her of this feat of legend as we leave. Taiyang, I have told you it before, you can help with the re-enactments."

"I hate you." Taiyang said, looking at Qrow. "I hate you _so much_."

Qrow smiled, and waved at him "Bye!"

"It all began with a game of Eins..."

 **After the ridiculously long story that I refuse to write down or verify for the sake of time, Yang ends up going to sleep, and would need to be awoken once they reach Mountain Glenn, a few hours before Five did. With the battle for Ruby Rose quickly approaching, what does Yang do?**

 **[X] Familiarise herself with the layout of the city of Mountain Glenn. Go through the buildings, ignore the Grimm, memorise the routes.**  
 **[X] Lay an ambush. The centre of the city would be the most likely place for Five to turn up, so prepare a trap there.**  
 **[X] Wait, is Port telling another story? No. No, we're not doing this. Go see what Neo's doing, it's probably important or something like that.**


	36. My City of Ruins

**[X] Familiarise herself with the layout of the city of Mountain Glenn. Go through the buildings, ignore the Grimm, memorise the routes.**

Walking off the ship's ramp, at the border wall of Mountain Glenn, Yang looked around.

The place was certainly busted down. It was in terrible condition, but that was to be expected of a place that had been attacked by Grimm. In fact, it was a miracle the place had held together as well as it had.

...Though if the stories about the fall of Mountain Glenn were true, that would be because the evacuation effort was partially successful, until the stronger Grimm hunted down the escapees.

Okay, those were bad thoughts, she should stop thinking them before she attracted some Grimm.

Two ran down the ramp a second after Yang, and looked around.

"Wow..." She said to herself. "It's like the old village, except bigger. And the fires have stopped. It's really sad."

"I was just thinking that." Yang noted. "Hopefully, I don't end up on the wrong end of a harpoon gun again."

Two frowned as she looked at the crumbling skyscrapers in the distance. "I don't understand. If the Grimm are capable of doing stuff like this, then why do people keep fighting? Why do we have terrorists like the White Fang when the Grimm are still out there?"

"Because there's a status quo." Taiyang replied, as he walked down. "As it stands, the Grimm can't muster up enough forces to destroy the Kingdoms, and the Kingdoms don't want to overreach too soon. Mountain Glenn was a false hope that could have gone much worse than it already did. If we lose too often, humans despair and give up, and then the Grimm win."

"So we can't just fight them..." Two muttered. "But why is there still people who fight other people?"

"A consequence of not fighting Grimm." Taiyang replied. "To some people, the Grimm are a more distant threat, because they status quo hasn't changed. To some people, the status quo isn't good enough. So they fight to try and bring about a world that they want, because the issues they face are more immediate and important to them then some distant boogeyman who cause great disasters every few decades."

There was silence for a moment, as Two looked back over the walls. There were great Grimm wandering around the area, not looking at them. Yang couldn't identify them at that distance, but the fact she could see them over the treetops was somewhat worrying.

"But hey!" Taiyang suddenly spoke up. "Let's not get _two_ depressed here."

"You need more sleep old man." Yang spoke up. "I know you're trying to get rid of this _Grimm_ mood, but the too/two pun is like the most obvious thing you could go for."

Two chuckled. "Hah. Grimm mood. It's a Grim mood, but because the word Grim is derived from the same source as the monsters called Grimm, it's a pun."

"Speaking of which." Cent suddenly called. "Everyone here knows the origin of the word Grim and Grimm, right? It originally referred to two brothers, who were famous for their depressing and murderous stories that their word became synonymous with the mood that too much death and tragedy causes."

"Seems legit." Taiyang nodded.

"Anyway, Port's staying on the ship for now." Cent continued. "He hooked up the computer on the ship with everyone's scrolls, so he's going to do mission support until Five arrives and Two can pout her into submission-"

"Take it seriously!" Two declared. "Yang's sister is in danger and you're making jokes!"

"Sorry." Cent replied. "I just don't see how anyone can resist the cute look you have when you're upset."

Two pouted at that, which of course only proved Cent's points.

"Alright, if you insist, enough jokes." Cent finished. "Anyway, Port's going to keep the computer running properly. As long as we scan the city every once in a while, we should have a somewhat up to date map with notes on where Grimm are and what are good vantage points. Also asked me to hand these out."

Cent reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bunch of little orbs.

"Scanners." He explained, as he handed them out. "Drop these everywhere, they'll pick up movement. Port can look over the feeds and keep an eye out in case Five's sneakier than we think, and if we lose track of people mid-fight, we can look through them on our scroll to track people down."

"Have we heard from Qrow?" Yang asked her father, a she took some of the orbs off Cent and pocketed them.

"He sent a message just before he boarded Five's ship with Torchiwck and Neo." Taiyang replied. "But he said he wasn't going to send any more unless his cover is blown, in case Five can intercept the messages. He hasn't sent a message, which means he's either fine, or things have gone much worse than expected."

"I just love it when our two options are so very different." Yang noted. "It's just, when there's two wildly different possibilities, no way of telling which is the case, and one is a very bad thing we would want warning on. That's just perfect."

"Ah." Cent noted. "I see that you, too, are a master at the art of Sarcasm. The most deadly of art, one in which one can, at the pinnacle of skill, kill a man with their sharp tongue and razor wit."

Two blinked, looking at him. "You never told me that! I would've asked you to teach me if I knew!"

"...I think he's joking." Yang noted.

"Me?" Cent asked. "Nah, I'm just not there yet. I have yet to replicate the time I was able to insult a man so thoroughly that he manifested burn scars all over his body."

"He's lying." Yang decided. "And I'm leaving. I'll scout out the walls, following... That way?"

She pointed left, and everyone nodded.

"I'll follow the right, then." Taiyang said. "Though, we shouldn't stick too close to the walls. Try building hopping, that should be in the city enough to scan a good distance."

"I'll cover the city centre!" Two declared, waving a hand.

"I want nothing more to be at Two's side." Cent said, and Two went bright red.

There were more footsteps, and everyone turned to see Miltia step off the airship.

"How do you people wake up this early?" She asked, with a yawn.

"Not a morning person?" Yang asked.

"It's morning when the sun comes up." Miltia mumbled.

"Go get some coffee." Taiyang advised. "Peter may ramble on at times, but I'm telling you, you'll never find someone who makes better coffee."

Two turned to Taiyang, her eyes burning with determination at that statement.

Cent sighed. "Looks like my week's going to be looking up different brews of coffee to find what Two can work the best with..."

"Just go already." Miltia complained, as she turned back in to find the promised coffee.

"Let's go." Taiyang said. "The instant you run into trouble or see an airship on it's way, call everyone immediately."

"Before we go." Port's voice suddenly came out from everyone's scrolls. "Let's go over the forces we're likely to face quickly."

"There's Five and her Disciple." Two noted. "Uh, if they're together, they can probably do a thing, so we should probably keep them separated? Like, me and Cent can do the thing too, but it'll tire me out because I haven't practised and it'd be pretty bad if the things happen around people."

"Melanie too." Miltia's voice came over the scrolls, along with a whistling kettle. "She's a melee fighter. Her Semblance is the same as mine, and she doesn't like it being shared around, but I suppose I have to in case she uses it. If she's expecting an attack where the projectile is smaller than her body, she can absorb it, nullify any damage, and use the energy from it to fire a projectile of her Aura back at the source. She keeps it for emergencies so people won't expect it if they're trying to kill her, but, well, Five might have her on orders to use it regardless."

"Ozpin said a few students didn't return to Beacon last night." Professor Port said. "Too many for them all to be connected to Five, but he doesn't know how many are related, so be prepared for some students being out there. If you can identify them, I can give you a report on their abilities."

"And then there might be some common mooks." Cent noted. "Some people who didn't get a real Beacon-level education apparently? Dropouts and people who weren't good enough to get in, at most. They should be easy to deal with, if they're around."

"Everyone got that?" Taiyang asked.

"Got it." Yang said, and everyone else echoed a moment after that.

"Then let's go." Taiyang said. "Be careful, everyone."

Yang nodded, then started running.

Heading off, Yang ran straight to the closest building, leaped through a broken window, and started running up the stairs to get to the roo-

Nevermind, the stairs only went up a floor and then there was a huge hole in the wall and most of the above floor was gone too.

Well, plan B, then.

Leaping out the hole, Yang blasted Ember Celica downwards to hit the wall of the next building, and started running up it. Whenever she stumbled or lost momentum, she fired again, boosting herself upwards and getting to the roof before long.

Pausing for a moment, Yang pulled out her scroll and scanned the area. It beeped after a moment, and Yang took a moment to pull out one of the spherical scanners, and threw it as hard as she could towards the middle of the city.

It sailed over the roof of another building, and Yang nodded as it went out of her line of sight.

Setting off on a run, Yang explored the city.

It went by for some time. Yang had to take a detour to avoid a group of Grimm including what looked like a small Nevermore resting on the back of a large Beowolf.

It would actually be cute, if they weren't murderous beasts intent to destroy all humanity. There was probably a disturbingly high chance that the positioning of the Nevermore was designed to make people hesitate at the oddity or cuteness, giving the Grimm time to get the first hit.

Looking around Mountain Glenn was a rather chilling experience. In places, it looked like buildings had been devastated by Grimm, or in conflicts with people. In these places, it wasn't out of place to see a vaguely red stain covering the floors or walls, or a scrap of torn, rotting cloth. Even the occasional bone fragment that was barely identifiable as a bone.

In other places, however, it seemed remarkably well put together. It was easy to tell when Yang had gotten to the parts that had evacuated early. It was the places where she could look in through a window and see plates set out on the table, with some half-eaten, rotting food. Places that almost looked untouched, where Yang could buy that people had lived their daily lives, until something horrible happened and their daily routine was interrupted.

Yang didn't want to think about how many people had died in Mountain Glenn, when the Grimm had invaded. It was at least big enough to be comparable to the capital of most Kingdoms, but that varied between the Kingdoms too. She didn't want to think about how crushing it must have been to people, that the first major settlement outside the Kingdoms, the first major one where there was hope of pushing the Grimm back, was crushed at this scale.

As she approached the north of the city, Yang noted that the buildings were getting smaller, so before long, she jumped to the ground and wandered the streets.

This seemed like a residential area, more than anything. Yang looked around, scanning the area with her phone, and paused momentarily as she saw the giant hole in the wall.

...Best not to pay attention here. If the Grimm got into Mountain Glenn near a residential area, then chances were there was going to be some hard sights. She shouldn't look too closely, this was the kind of set up in movies where the rookie Hunter wanders around, notices a body crushed in rubble near a child's doll and gets a harsh reminder that there was more at stake than their own reputation. Or something like that.

Besides, she didn't want to attract any Grimm right now with negativity. She needed to focus on Ruby. Five would be here any moment no-

There was a beep on her scroll, and Yang opened it up.

"I see something!" Two declared over the screen. She quickly repositioned her scroll, pointing the camera at the sky.

In the distance, there was a small blip.

"Uh, how do I zoom in?" Two asked.

Port's voice spoke over the scroll. "Press the blue button, and hold down the same coloured button on the scanner and hold it in the sky."

"Thank you!"

A moment passed, before the camera changed positions. Then, a slightly higher angle zoomed in.

"That's definitely an airship." Taiyang said. "A bit hard to pick it out, but that's an airship. Anyone find anything of note to keep an eye on?"

"There was a gathering of Grimm in the city that I passed." Yang noted. "If Five wants this city as a kind of base, she'll need to clear the city, so someone might engage them, and someone could find one of her fighters by watching them."

"I fell in a hole." Cent said. "It's, uh, a big hole. Five might investigate it. I totally planned to fall down it. To, uh, lay a trap. Ignore that I can't find the way out."

There was a pause.

"Hey, is that a train?"

"I'm watching the scanners." Miltia said. "The instant I find Melanie, I'm going to her. If anyone wants to lend a hand, that's fine, but I'm going to go see my sister."

"I'll wait until the airship lands." Peter Port said. "If it comes too close to our airship, I'll fly it away so it cannot be damaged in a fight. Once I know it's safe, I'll step out to lend a hand. If I see any of the missing students, I'll take responsibility."

"Two, you were going to fight Five, right?" Taiyang asked. "I'll try and find Dito then, keep him busy so he can't help Five. Yang, what about you?"

 **[X] "I'm making sure Ruby gets out alright before anything. Getting to the airship, even if it's guarded. Qrow's there, but I want to be there as well."**  
 **[X] "Miltia, tell me when you're heading to Melanie, I'll lend you a hand. I'll just fight whoever I encounter until then."**  
 **[X] "Someone should probably help Cent. If nobody else is, I will, I suppose. Where's this hole you got stuck in?"**  
 **[X] "I want to punch Five in the face. Two, please let me punch your sister in the face. It'll make me feel a lot better."**


	37. Sunglasses at Night

**[X] "Someone should probably help Cent. If nobody else is, I will, I suppose. Where's this hole you got stuck in?"**

"Someone should get Cent out of the hole he's stuck in."

"I'm not stuck." Cent replied. "I'm preparing an ambush and just can't find a way out.

Everyone suddenly started clearing their throats loudly.

"Point taken." Cent conceded.

"Once I get him out, I'll find whoever needs the most help." Yang continued. "Cent, don't bother saying your plans, we all know you're going to compliment Two and probably make an innuendo in the process."

"Tch, gotten predictable." Cent moaned. "I need to make myself even more amazing to keep people wowed, then..."

"Is it too late to change my mind?" Yang asked. "Leaving Cent to die in a hole sounds nice."

"Don't be mean." Two pouted. "I need him."

"Aw, love you too, Two."

Two went quiet.

"My only regret is I can't see your cute face right now~"

"Get a room." Taiyang sighed. "Christ, is this what it's like from the outside? I owe Qrow an apology..."

Yang quickly swiped on her scroll a few times, locating Cent's current location, and tapped another few times to get directions.

"On my way." Yang said. "Be safe, everyone. Win your fights, save my sister and anyone else Five's gotten addicted, get everyone home."

Putting the scroll away, Yang started running.

Quickly leaping up a building and running along the rooftops, Yang made sure not to fire Ember Celica, instead clinging to windows as she started climbing higher. She didn't want to draw attention, from Grimm or whatever minions Five had.

As she started approaching Cent's location, towards the centre of the city, Yang noticed Five's airship drawing close to the ground. After a moment, a few distant figures leaped out of it. One at first, then three others a moment later. They hit the ground a moment later, as the airship drew towards the ground much slower as it landed towards the north.

"They're dropping." Taiyang noted over the scroll.

"Port?" Two asked. "Do any of the scanners show my sister?"

"Not yet, miss Two." Professor Port replied. "I'll let you know when I do."

"Thanks." Two finished.

Yang noted the conversation, and looked down as she jumped to another rooftop, and saw a group of Grimm wandering towards where Five's airship was. So anyone over that would be slowed down by a bit of a fight.

It took a while, but eventually, Yang found the hole Cent had fallen into.

"...Hey, Cent?" Yang asked, as she stepped over the hole and pulled out her scroll. "How far down is this thing? I can't see the bottom of this thing."

"I'm not entirely sure." Cent replied. "It's, uh, a big hole."

"I can see that." Yang noted. "So, did you just not see this hole? It's basically the entire street."

"...It might not have been here before I walked over a crack in the ground."

"I thought you went down it intentionally?" Yang asked, an amused tone in her voice.

"I may have exaggerated..." Cent admitted. "Hey, do me a favour, don't let Two know I didn't plan this?"

"I can hear you." Two interrupted.

"No you don't!" Cent panicked.

Two giggled. "Cent, you don't have to be absolutely perfect, you know."

"But I am." Cent insisted.

"Oh, that's nice." Yang noted. "So you can get yourself out of this hole, then?"

"...Can you look around for some rope?" Cent asked.

Yang looked around. "The buildings around here are a bit rubble-y. I don't think that'll work."

"Well, that's great." He sighed. "Well, there's a cavern down here, so there has to be a way to access it somehow, right?"

"Didn't you mention a train?" Yang asked. "That might be an easy way out. Professor, do you have any old map data that could point towards a train station?"

"Of Mountain Glenn? No." Professor Port noted. "But if I look around a bit, I might be able to find the old plans for the railway between here and Vale, and can estimate the location based on those plans. Which may take some time, but my prowess with computer record archives is unmatched."

"Uh huh." Yang nodded. "Just do it quickly, please?"

Port made an affirmative note, and started typing.

Hearing a shuffling sound from behind her, Yang saw an Ursa approaching slowly, with some more footsteps from behind the buildings.

"Got some Grimm." Yang said, pocketing her scroll. "Gonna deal with that quickly."

Preparing Ember Celica, she paused for a moment. Didn't want to attract any attention from Five's people wandering around. Best to keep this quiet. Her shotgun gauntlets were kinda loud, so maybe she should keep this to regular melee.

Besides, she needed to preserve ammo.

Running in close, Yang slugged the Ursa in the face. It reeled back, but quickly recovered and pounced. Yang flipped back, watched the Ursa overextend itself, and kept baiting it forward. It drew closer as Yang moved back, and eventually, when it leapt again, Yang ducked under it's arm, grabbed it around the neck, and spun around.

Grunting in pain, Yang threw it back, and it gave a short roar as it fell down the hole. Turning around without watching it fall for more than a second, Yang stepped away from the hole. After a moment of nothing happening, Yang walked to the end of a street, and found three Beowolf's lurking in the area.

With a growl, the Beowolf's started dashing at her. Yang smirked as they came close, then charged in herself and jumped over the first Beowolf. Landing on the Beowolf's head, Yang reeled back her fist as she slipped down, and came down on the next Grimm beast by punching it into the ground. Without moving her hand, Yang spun around on it, kicking the third Beowolf in the head while holding another one down, and as the first Beowolf turned around, Yang pushed off the beast she was holding down and bounced away a bit.

Keeping a smirk as they all circled around her, Yang jumped back some more, ran up the side of a nearby building, then pounced at the closest Beowolf. She passed over it, reached down and grabbed its head, before kicking it's back as she passed over and pulled the Beowolf's head off. It faded away, and the next Beowolf bared it's fangs at Yang. She smashed its teeth in with her gauntlets, then grabbed it's tongue and pulled, while striking at it again with her other hand.

The Grimm hissed in pain as it tried to gnaw on Yang's arm, but she tore its tongue out and kicked it back again to knock the Beowolf into it's companion.

"Found it." Port spoke up suddenly. "I've sent the area in which the train station most likely is to your scroll, have a look after you're not under attack."

Yang considered it for a moment, before rushing forward and punching one Grimm hard enough to tear straight through it's chest, and as it faded away, she leveraged it's weight by forcing it back while it still had weight, and as her arm moved back, Yang swept her leg at the final Grimm, kicking it just before the weight through back pulled her out of the way of a counterattack.

Flipping to avoid hurting herself in the fall, Yang slid to a stop, and waited until the Beowolf was charging forward again. At the last second, she stepped forward and uppercutted it, sending it into the air. Finally, she grabbed it's leg and threw it into a wall. As the wall collapsed, the Grimm faded away.

"Looks like I brought the house down." Yang smirked. "...No, that's not the best time for that pun, the building didn't actually collapse and that looks more like an office building than a place where people left. Well, good thing nobody heard me."

"Indeed." Cent replied, over the scroll.

Yang paused. "...You heard nothing."

Cent chuckled. "Oh, I can't wait to share this story with everyone..."

"If I save you will you tell nobody?"

"Sure, sure. By the way, did you know that nobody was originally a nickname given to people who wanted to remain anonymous? That's why people claim say things like 'Nobody's home' when they don't want people to come into their home."

Yang ignored him, as she looked at the map as to where the train station was.

...To the north. Towards Five's people. Great.

Sighing, Yang once again climbed a building, jumping from window to window, before setting off on a run.

Voices continued speaking over the scroll, for a moment.

"The Grimm are getting agitated." Taiyang noticed. "Or maybe that's just the mood. A few've passed by and sniffed me out. I've noticed that they're starting to gather in bigger groups."

"Me too." Miltia said, after a moment.

"Ah, miss Malachite." Port spoke up. "It may interest you to know, I think I saw your sister for a second there on these reports. She's heading towards the north-east of Mountain Glenn."

There was silence for a moment, as Yang jumped over another building and saw the train station ruins nearby.

"No sign of Five yet." Port continued. "She may be sticking close to the airship. Speaking of, take care miss Xiao Long, you've passed the northernmost point I can observe and may be drawing close."

"I'll be fine." Yang replied, as she leaped from a rooftop, rolled on the street, and came to a stop in from of the station.

There were gunshots nearby, and Yang spun around to look for the source, but couldn't see anyone.

"Okay they might be close." She whispered. "Gotta get to Cent quickly."

Stepping inside the ruined train station, Yang looked around and sighed.

"I can see the way down." She noted. "That's the good news. Bad news, it's caved in."

"Damn." Cent sighed. "Okay, I'm looking at my scroll, I'm near where your signal's coming from. I should be able to clear a way quickly."

"I can help blow up a bit of it." Yang noted. "But I might draw attention doing so, so be ready for a fight."

"Are you sure?" Taiyang asked. "If it's a threat you can't handle-"

"Relax." Cent dismissed. "I've seen Yang in action. She's tough. Besides, I'm not far, and I could probably end basically any fight in a few minutes."

"...Sure." Taiyang sighed. "Your call, Yang, but be careful."

Yang nodded, as she loaded Ember Celica.

"You on the other side of this?" Yang asked.

"I see some sort of structure up ahead." Cent replied. "So maybe? Start clearing and I'll tell you if I hear an explosion."

"Here goes nothing." Yang prepared herself, punching down. Ember Celica let loose a blast, and some rubble was tossed to the side.

"I heard that." Cent confirmed. "And the rubble's cleared a bit. Keep going."

Yang nodded, punching as fast as she could while letting loose repeated blasts to clear as much of the area as possible. After a second of that, she looked back to confirm there was nobody sneaking up behind her. When the area behind her was clear, Yang turned back to the rubble and kept blasting.

"Sounds like your close." Cent noted. "I can see the dust kicking up, so you should nearly be ther-"

A bullet struck Yang from the side, and she quickly ducked down as dozens more struck at her in a second. After hitting the ground, two seconds passed, countless bullets whizzed through the air above her.

"Everything alright up there?" Cent asked, as Yang heard him shifting rocks around.

"We got attackers." Yang coughed.

"I've got it from here." Cent said. "Could've cleared it up easily enough myself, but now I could get through in a second. Go see who's attacking."

The bullets stopped coming, and Yang stood, and looked through the hole in the wall left by the stream of bullets. They were scatted enough that the wall was still blocking most of her view, so Yang took a step back, then charged through it.

As the wall collapsed around her, Yang came face to face with her attacker. An attacker who, Yang noted, stared at her with familiar red eyes.

"So, you're with Five, then?" Yang asked.

"You know about Five." The girl with the gatling gun noted. She tilted her beret on her head, and she tilted down some sunglasses on her forehead to cover her eyes.

Yang almost considered making a statement about what kind of person wore sunglasses while the sun was still down, but chose against it.

"I'll give you one warning." Yang said. "Step down. Get out of my way. Let me save my sister."

"Or?" The older girl asked.

Yang's hands curled into a fist, adjusting one of the settings on Ember Celica on

"I've had a really bad time recently." Yang noted. "So if you don't step down, then I'm going to punch you until you stop moving. Then I'm probably going to punch you some more to work through some stress."

The girl with the gatling gun smiled. "And how are you going to get close enough to hit me, punchy?"

Yang cracked a knuckle, and smirked to hide her frustration. "Looks like we're doing this the fun way."

Why couldn't this girl just stand down and let her do something important?

As her opponent's gun spun up, Yang dashed to the side as the bullets started flying. She ran around in a quarter-circle around her foe, as bullets came flying, before aiming Ember Celica and firing.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, she had gone weapon shopping and found a selection of cheap experimental ammo which she'd never gotten around to testing out. Now was a good a time as any. The dust round grew to the side of a soccer ball after a second, was struck by a couple of dozen smaller bullets as it flew towards her opponent, striking the stationary shooter in the face, knocking off her sunglasses and forcing her to take a step back.

"Hm." Yang noted. "Definitely absorbed the bullets, but not noticeably stronger? At least it's a good counter against your gun."

The girl scoffed. "Congratulations. You hit me once. Most can't say the same."

"Are you sure?" Yang asked, as she continued running around. "You're rather slow for a Huntress. What, do you just hope that nothing gets close enough? Because-"

Yang fired twice, using regular shots, and the girl quickly shot her gatling gun again, using her bullets to disrupt and destroy Yang's explosive blasts.

"-You seem kinda easy to distract."

The girl's eyes went wide and she turned around as Cent stepped out of the stairway, and she started aiming her gun at him, giving Yang the chance to close in and strike.

As she stepped into arms distance, however, her fit was caught and held in place. Yang turned around and briefly saw bunny ears, before someone threw her into a wall.

Getting to her feet, Yang looked up to see some kind of Faunus with wires around her fist, resembling-

"Are those my gauntlets?" Yang asked.

The rabbit girl with red eyes looked at Yang and nodded.

"You didn't actually think I would be alone, did you?" The girl in the beret asked. "Velvet here took her time to observe your weapon so she could match whatever you could do."

Standing back to back with her apparent partner, the girl with the gatling gun smirked. "Now, let me offer you something. Would you prefer to give up now and let me drag you before Five to hear a little song? Or do you want me to fill you full of bullets first?"

Yang glared, as she prepared for a fight.

 **[X] Fight right here. Port probably heard everything over his scroll, he'd send help if he thought it was needed. Maybe even help himself after a moment.**  
 **[X] Go for a running battle towards another location. Fight while leading the two girls somewhere else for some reason or another.**  
 **-[X] Towards Five's airship. Yang would be heading there anyway, and Qrow should still be hanging around there, so he could help.**  
 **-[X] Towards Two. Cent would be heading there anyway, and if the fight goes bad, she's tough.**  
 **-[X] Towards Miltia. Not as tough as Two, but last time Yang checked the map, she was the closest.**  
 **[X] Surrender. Let these two drag Yang to Five. They'd probably keep her on Five's airship, which was exactly where Yang wanted to go.**


	38. Five

**[X] Go for a running battle towards another location. Fight while leading the two girls somewhere else for some reason or another.**  
 **-[X] Towards Two. Cent would be heading there anyway, and if the fight goes bad, she's tough.**

Yang raised an eyebrow.

"You want me to surrender?" Yang asked. "Hm. Not sure. Cent, what do you think?"

Cent shrugged. "I don't know the origin of that word, and as such, I refuse to acknowledge that it's important in any way. Let's not do it."

"Oh, good." The girl in the beret. "Looks like we get to do this the fun way."

"Coco-" The bunny girl began, but the girl speaking ignored her by revving up her gatling gun.

Yang dashed in real fast, punching at Velvet as Velvet hit back, and the force behind Velvet's fist pushed Yang's back, following through and striking Yang in the cheek. Yang was forced back a step, but ducked under the fist and went for a counter-attack.

That was an informational exchange. The rabbit Faunus was definitely showing signs of being empowered by Five's song, that was a really powerful hit. But Velvet wasn't a brawler like Yang. She wasn't trained in using gauntlet weapons like Ember Celica. Yang was at a disadvantage regarding pure strength, but she was certainly more skilled with her fists.

Still, underestimating Velvet wouldn't do. She'd replicated Ember Celica easily enough, it wouldn't do to assume that using it was the only thing the Faunus could do. Yang wouldn't be surprised if those wires could change into a gatling gun like Coco had.

Meanwhile, Coco opened fire on Cent, who danced around the bullets as he approached, sword in hand. First jumping to the left, then sliding under the stream of projectiles as it followed him.

As Cent approached, Coco took a step back to bump into Velvet, who had kept Yang at bay so far by moving to strike with overwhelming force every time she got close. As Yang approached, Velvet suddenly jumped up, and Coco spun around. Yang's eyes widened and she ran to the side, as the first few bullets struck her and damaged her Aura, before she managed to roll out of the way.

Cent, meanwhile, pulled out his blade to block Velvet's fist, which then exploded and knocked her upwards, into a rooftop.

This wasn't working. The two of them had managed that instant trick with nothing more but one walking in to the other, and both of them were powerful. Cent seemed to be holding his own against Velvet strength-wise, but Yang didn't really have any advantage over anyone. Unless they could pull out a game changer, this would be a fight that would, optimistically, leave Yang with low enough Aura that she couldn't help save Ruby beyond maybe one good hit.

They were going to need to get some help. Like...

"Cent!" Yang called. "Follow me!"

Yang leaped to the side of the building, running up and hitting the roof after shooting downwards, the recoil propelling her high enough to land on the rooftop. Velvet moved to follow, and Yang shot towards her, forcing her to fire again to move herself out of the path of the projectile.

Cent jumped to the rooftop besides Yang, as Yang continued running. "What are we doing?"

Coco's bullets started tearing through the building towards Yang and Cent, and Cent dashed in to deflect the bullets almost hitting Yang so she could dodge to the side.

"I don't want to risk beating them alone." Yang explained. "Where's Two?"

Port's voice suddenly spoke up from over the scroll.

"Head further into the city." He advised. "She's to your west, and I'll advise her to watch her scroll so she can track your location and meet up with you."

"Thanks." Yang nodded.

"Though..." Port trailed off. "I listened into the conflict, and I must confirm. Did the fighters give the names Velvet and Coco?"

"That's what I heard." Cent replied.

"...I see." Port replied. "Be careful. Those two are Beacon students, and highly graded ones as well."

...Ah. So these were more people enthralled by Five. Maybe not bad people, but just people who heard a song and now they're hooked and can't bring themselves to say no.

Velvet stepped onto the rooftops, and Cent dashed at her with his sword, which she met with a wire replica of it. Cent smirked, as his blade suddenly started folding, and the transforming blade pointed a gun barrel right into her face. As Cent started firing, Coco ducked, sweeping her legs under his to trip him up, but Cent jumped back before she could do so.

Coco wasn't firing, and with a sudden concern, Yang jumped over the gap between buildings where Coco was standing, and fired downward. Coco dodged back as she tapped at her scroll, and Yang watched her look up with a smirk, as she pushed it away.

Damn it, she'd given her time, she must've sent a message to Five or her people.

Nothing to do about it now.

Yang fired at Coco again, pushing herself away and to the west, and as she reached the ground and rolled to bleed off momentum, she turned and fired towards Cent and Velvet.

Cent himself danced around the projectile, which Velvet then deflected, and he fell backwards from the rooftop he was on before somehow landing on his feet on the street.

Coco ran out of the alleyway she was in, and opened fire again, but stopped almost immediately. Her pace while firing was also much slower. Couldn't go all out while in motion?

Velvet's wires shifted again, changing into a cane of some kind, which she then fired at Yang, shooting a projectile somewhat like Ember Celica's explosive round at her.

"Catch me if you can, ladies." Cent called, as he dodged Coco's bullets. "Hey, did you know that the word ladies was first used-"

Velvet jumped at Cent, kicking him in the face, and Cent jumped back to avoid her further attacks.

"Tch, tough crowd." He complained, as he and Yang ran. As he did so, he opened fire, forcing Coco to twist her gun to block some bullets.

Velvet and her partner gave chase, and Yang smiled. Good. This fight was getting on the way.

Yang sprinted forward a bit, turning a corner before jumping up a building and going through a window on the third floor. Cent ran past, going around the building, and as Velvet and Coco gave chase, Yang fired at Velvet. The rabbit Faunus caught the projectile with the curved end of her wire can, and flung it to the side, detonating it against another building, and Coco opened fire at the building Yang was in.

Turned heel and bursting through a wall, Yang started running, going through another two walls before getting to the other side of the building and leaping out of it. As she did so, she fired downwards, leaping to another rooftop, and climbing upwards just as Velvet and Coco started running up the walls of another building. Yang fired at them, and Coco ran through the shot, stumbling for a moment before turning her oversized gun around and firing, propelling herself far upwards.

Cent climbed up the wall of a third building, turning back and firing at Velvet as he ran, and Velvet stepped to the side in a flash.

Yang leaped from the rooftops, going into another building, and ran.

The running battle continued for some time, with Yang occasionally stopping to ambush her pursuers, forcing them to push themselves to not give her time for a proper trap.

Eventually, Yang stopped running. Dashing towards Coco and Velvet, Yang punched forward, as Velvet's wire twisted around her arms to replicate Ember Celica again.

Velvet punched downwards, and Yang leaped out of the way as the ground cracked. She turned and fired at Velvet, knocking her back into a wall and allowing Yang to push off that to follow the projectile.

Velvet herself turned, punched through the explosive round, and punched again as Yang drew close. She struck Yang's stomach, and as her Aura took damage, Yang grabbed Velvet's arm with one hand and fired backwards with the other.

As Yang hit the ground, pulling Velvet off balance, Yang brought her knee up to hit the Faunus in the chin, and used her grip on Velvet's arm to throw her into a wall. Coco opened fire as Velvet regained her footing, forcing Yang on the defensive for a moment. Dodging out of the way of the projectiles and forcing through a wall to conceal herself, Yang ducked down and watched the bullets whizz over her head and to the left.

Yang looked out the hole she left in the wall, and saw Cent pushing Velvet back, before she changed her wires again into a spear of some kind and catching him off guard with a new fighting style. Before he could adapt, she changed again, to some kind of axe which she brought down on him, forcing him back.

Taking a moment to catch her breath as Coco stopped firing, Yang burst through another wall, decking Coco in the face and firing as she did so. Coco was forced back a step, but before Yang could follow up on that attack, Coco let go of her gun and caught Yang's fist.

Yang struggled for a moment, before Coco pulled her off her feet, off balance, and struck her elbow into Yang's stomach. Knocking Yang into the air, Coco jumped into the air, before kicking and slamming Yang into the ground.

Keeping a foot on Yang's neck to hold her down, Coco moved to pick up her gun again, before there was a gunshot that forced her to dodge away.

"Ho ho." A jolly voice spoke up. "It seems as if Two has yet to arrive."

Yang jumped to her feet, and looked towards the source of the voice.

"Professor Port?" Coco asked.

The man with the glorious moustache jumped down from the rooftop he was standing on, blunderbuss in hand. "My student. It pains me to see you like this."

"Oh shut up." Coco snarled. "What, are you sad I'm not just sitting aside and listening to one of your bullshit stories?"

Port sighed. "You were such a well mannered student in class, Coco. To see Five have twisted you like this-"

Coco dashed for her gun, ignoring Port shooting at her as she did so, and opened fire on him. In response, Port spun his weapon around, holding the large axe in front of him so the bullets bounced off it.

"Don't be talking down to Five now." Coco advised. "She means a lot more to me than you do."

Port sighed. "Very well. Know that I take no pleasure from this."

Yang didn't see him move, before he was at Coco's side. His gun fired, and Coco's weapon changed into a purse-like shape as she spun it around to block the projectiles coming at her, before she was hit from behind by a second blast from Port, who Yang wasn't able to see move.

As Coco stumbled, Port reached for her arm, and ripped her purse out of her hands. Turning with eyes like fire, Coco punched at him.

"Don't-"

Coco pulled free from Port's grasp as she retreated, her Aura flared, and she dashed back to Velvet's side, where she was still holding back Cent.

"Fighting a fat old man?" Coco asked. "I have better things to do. Now's a good a time as any, I suppose."

She clicked her fingers, and there was the sound of tolling bells from every direction. Yang looked towards the building she'd been in when Coco had been firing towards her, and a bright light was illuminating from within.

With a casual gesture, Coco swept her hand to the side, and around the light, the walls began groaning, as fragments of concrete suddenly flew at Port. Eyes wide, Port dodged to the side, away from Yang and everyone else, as more and more parts of the building started flying at him. He swung his axe to divert projectiles, but as he started being overwhelmed, the house collapsed, and as it fell, it froze momentarily, before the entire building suddenly flew at Port and buried him under the rubble.

Coco had her eyes closed in concentration as she pointed at the rubble, and Yang took the chance to run up to Coco, clocking her in the back of the head. As she stumbled back, Velvet jumped forward, in front of Yang, and struck her in the stomach. Cent slammed his sword into Velvet's neck, and she dodged to the side, as she and Coco tried to regain their footing.

There was the sudden thundering of feet, and after a moment, a cloud of dust sprung from the ground. As it cleared, Coco looked up, as Two slammed down, her sword tearing through her Aura.

Coco fell back, panting in exhaustion and pain as she picked up her handbag and pointed at the motionless Two.

Two stood up, straightened her back, and looked at Cent.

"Sorry I'm late!" She exclaimed. "I ran into a group of Grimm and they were inside a building, I think it was a kindergarten or something, and it felt wrong so I killed them. I know, I got sidetracked, but-"

Coco opened fire, blasting her gatling gun at Two, and Two simply put her sword behind her back and blocked the bullets without looking.

"-I'm here now. Hey, wasn't Professor Port here a second ago? I thought I heard him..."

Velvet dashed at Yang, grabbing her by the neck before anyone could react, and slammed her into the ground. With her wires replicating Ember Celica again, Velvet fired repeatedly with the hand around Yang's neck while punching Yang in the face, and Yang responded by headbutting upwards. Velvet was knocked back, and then Two grabbed Velvet by the neck and picked her up.

"I was talking." Two said. "And you hurt my friend. Are you alright, Yang?"

"'m fine." She said, as she stood up. Coco's oversized gun folded into a bag again, as she dashed forward and slammed it into Two, who simply threw Velvet at Coco.

"Hey, wanna give up?" Two asked. "I don't want to hurt you more than needed. Port said you were his students, so I didn't want to upset him-"

Velvet dashed behind Two and Coco opened fire as Velvet's wires started replicating her gatling gun. Two dodged away as two different streams of bullets coming at her.

"No? Two asked. "Okay then."

There was a flash, and Coco collapsed backwards as Two sliced her with her blade. Grunting in pain, Coco couldn't react before Two kicked her into the pile of rubble burying Port, and Two turned towards Velvet, who's wires shifted into a cane once again and started firing explosive projectiles which Two completely ignored.

Coco stood to continue engaging Two, but a sudden burst of movement ended with a hand from within the rubble grabbing her shoulder.

"I wouldn't advise that." Professor Port said, as he emerged from the rubble. "I wouldn't want to see you hurt yourself."

Coco raised a hand, and all the bullets she and Velvet had fired from gatling guns glowed for a moment, but Port simply pulled her back and struck her head against the rubble, disrupting her concentration and making the glowing stop.

"It's over." Port said, as Two cut through Velvet's wires and forced her to the ground.

"Aw." Said a new voice, and Yang felt a shiver down her spine. "But it was just getting interesting."

She spun, and looked at the woman speaking from atop of another rooftop. A woman with blond hair was looking down with a laugh, a revealing outfit, and a mark on her forehead like Two's.

V

Five.

"Coco got to use her Semblance, Velvet was going through a lot of weapons, and my beautiful sister was having fun." Five laughed. "Why end the fun now?"

"Five." Two spoke up, stepping away from Velvet as Cent took over holding her down. "You don't have to do this. You can just stop now and-"

"Stop?" Five asked. "In my moment of triumph? Melanie has captured her sister-"

No.

"-Dito managed to find the intruder Neo was supporting and got the full story out of her when he put his spear through Torchwick's stomach-"

No no no...

"-And soon, I'll have defeated the last few opposing me and finally be reunited with my dear sister." Five smiled. "What reason would I have to top?

Yang didn't wait any longer, jumping up and firing backwards to shoot herself up near Five. "You-"

Five caught her arm as Yang went for a punch, before grabbing her by the throat.

"Oh, but aren't you beautiful?" Five asked, with a chuckle. "I love your hair, darling. So much like mine. You know, you could probably wear an outfit like mine and be mistaken for me at a distance. I've always wanted a body double..."

Yang spat in her face, and Five tilted her head to avoid it.

"Play nice." Five smiled. "I promise you, it'll be good for you too-"

Suddenly, Cent was behind Five, stabbing forward. Five casually stepped to the side, with a laugh, and threw Yang to the ground. Yang fired Ember Celica downwards to slow her descent, and Two caught her as she fell, though the blue-haired woman continued to stare upwards at her sister for a moment.

"Five..." She whispered, before she started speaking up.

"So, there's the teacher, my sister, her Disciple, and the girl." Five noted. "I'm not sure about the girl's father, but Melanie's dealt with Miltia, Roman's in critical condition, Neo won't defy me further while he is how he is, and Dito's having fun with the intruder. Qrow, wasn't it?"

Yang's heart plummeted. "What are you-"

"I didn't have time to break him in." Five continued. "But that little sister of yours, I think she'll be a little more reluctant to resist me after the show Dito's giving her."

Yang's eyes burned red as she glared up at Five with a snarl.

 **[X] Attack Five, beat her, beat her now. She's earned it at this point.**  
 **[X] Forget Five. Qrow's in trouble. Get to the airship and stop whatever's happening.**


	39. Psycho

**[X] Forget Five. Qrow's in trouble. Get to the airship and stop whatever's happening.**

Five was standing on the rooftops. Yang stared upwards, glaring with hateful eyes.

She had to be bluffing. Qrow had to be fine, he was saving Ruby, they were fine, they'd be fine, but how did Five know about Qrow? How could she, if she wasn't telling the truth? How would she know so much about all the people who were here to oppose her?

There had to be some trick here, but what could it be? Five was right here, the person who had kidnapped Ruby, gotten so many people addicted to her song, and was motivated by reasons as petty as exotic food, barely a reason to leave a house let alone act like a super villain...

There was no way she could know about Qrow being on the airship with Neo and Roman unless one of the latter sold him out, and if Qrow was fine after being sold out then he would have contacted someone by now and spread the word. Five had to be right. Qrow had been caught somehow, and if he'd been caught then why would she be lying about what they were doing to Five, what was this Dito person doing-

Damn it, _damn it_.

A cry bursting from her throat, Yang set out on a sprint. Running past the building Five was on and running north, a name slipped from her lips.

"Qrow!" She called. "Ruby!"

People behind her called her name, but Yang tuned them out as her vision tunnelled before her. She heard gunshots, and the sound of steel striking steel, but she ignored it.

She had to get to Five's airship, find out what was going on. She couldn't risk the chance Five was telling the truth, she couldn't let Ruby be stuck there if there was even the slightest chance that Qrow had been caught.

She was supposed to be Ruby's big sister, she'd promised to keep her sister safe and sound forever. She couldn't just stand aside, especially not now. Especially not if someone else she looked up to was in danger as well.

There was a growl, as a swarm of Grimm turned the corner in front of Yang, attracted by her anger, and she leapt up, crushing a Beowolf's skull as she passed. It died, and the others around her lunged at her, but Yang fired back and propelled herself forward, bypassing the Grimm entirely as she ran along a wall and went upwards.

There was a cawing sound in the distance, as a Nevermore took flight with increasingly close flaps of its wings, and Yang looked back to see the small-ish Nevermore flying in her general direction. It was distant, but it looked to be a weaker Nevermore, though that would still be a big threat at her current abilities.

But who cared? The Nevermore didn't have anything to do with Five. She had more important things to worry about.

Yang continued dashing forward, noticing a park in the distance, with a lot of trees knocked down and what vaguely looked like an airship in the middle. Grimm wandered around near the park but away from the airship, just enough to make it difficult for her to pass. A King Taijitu wandered the street where it met the trees.

Fighting that would take too much time. Well, time to practice her landing strategy.

Continuing to run along the side of the building and forcing herself to the roof of a nearby skyscraper, Yang sprinted as fast as she could before leaping off the top and firing backwards.

She went through a whole clip of Ember Celica and was forced to reload in mid-air, but she propelled herself far enough to skip most of the park. Before she could slow her landing, though, she hit the trees, knocking the wind out of her as she hit a branch and fell backwards onto the ground. Her Aura strained under the damage taken, but Yang got up with a groan and kept running.

This wasn't enough to make her stop. Her sister needed her. Nothing was enough to make her stop.

She stood and continued sprinting towards the airship, even as her muscles screamed at her. Didn't matter. Her sister needed her.

A bull-like Grimm started running through the trees, and Yang leapt onto an above tree branch, flaring her Aura as she did so. She grabbed a handful of vines as she caught fire. The vines quickly burned up, and Yang threw them at the approaching Minos, noting as she did so that the flames were spreading quickly.

The Grimm cried out in pain as Yang kept running, and before long, there was an orange glow behind Yang as she continued running through the night.

Continuing her run, Yang came to a clearing, with a large airship in the middle.

Perfect.

The airship was sealed up, no way in and no way out, but Yang refused to let that be a problem. Running up to the doorway without a ramp, several metres off the floor, Yang leapt up and punched the doorway. The steel rang out at the impact, but there was no dent. Not even a scratch.

"Hey!" Yang screamed, as she landed on the ground. "Let me in, assholes!"

There was an angry growl from behind her, and Yang turned to see the burnt Minos from before step out, burning as it threw the last of the vines off of itself. It stomped its foot a few times, before charging at Yang.

The yellow-haired girl jumped up as the Minos approached, and there was a cawing sound as she looked up and saw the Nevermore from earlier diving down at her. Before she could react, it's head struck into her, forcing her against the side of the airship. Yang cried out in pain as her drew close to breaking point. Reaching around the smallish Nevermore's head, Yang grabbed its throat and ripped it outwards. The Nevermore died, and before she fell, Yang struck back.

The airship still wasn't scratched.

Damn it, she wasn't strong enough. She couldn't risk getting hurt much more. She couldn't just brute force this, she needed to work smarter.

As she hit the ground, Yang turned and saw the Minos running at her again. Preparing to duck under it and throw it upwards, and braced herself for another hit.

The airship ramp suddenly came down, crushing the Minos, and Yang took a step back in surprise.

"Hey, blondie." Roman grinned, before coughing and doubling over, reaching for his stomach. His usually white outfit was dyed red with blood.

Neo suddenly appeared at his side with a shattering, grabbing his arm and pulling him away.

"Calm down." Roman replied. "I'll live. You can carry me to the med bay when I'm unconscious. That Dito fucker deserves what's coming to him. Give him hell for me, blondie."

He collapsed slightly, groaning in the process, and Neo gave Yang a look.

"Go give him whatever help he needs." Yang ordered him. "Thank him when he wakes up."

Neo looked down, before picking Roman's cane off his side, threw it at Yang, and as soon as she caught it, waved a hand and hid it from view.

Yang nodded at her, attaching the cane to her belt and feeling it to make sure it was actually real.

Neo gestured her in, picked Roman up under his shoulders, and walked in. Yang watched her long enough for Neo to point in the direction she wasn't walking in, showing Yang the way. Yang turned the instant she did so, the tunnel vision returning as she ran through the airship.

Every door she passed, Yang paused to look in and confirm that there was nobody inside. She passed room after room, every one having a bed in it for some reason, usually with some clothes left on the floor. There was one room with a bookshelf with what looked like fifty different identical copies of the same book.

Eventually, she passed another door which slid open, and a sudden scream filled her ears before she processed the sight.

On the other end of the wall, chained to it and held into the air, was Ruby, the red cloak she was so fond of nowhere on her, as she looked blankly at the ground before her. And for good reason. The sight of her sister distracted her from it for a moment, but the following scream certainly reminded Yang what was happening.

Some kid was standing with his back to the door, a spear in his hand. In front of him, with the spear piercing his arm and drawing blood, was her uncle, Qrow. He gritted his teeth, and the kid pulled out.

"Ready for this, Red?" The kid asked, before pressing a button on the hilt of his spear. There was a sickening scream which Yang couldn't connect to Qrow, it sounded too pained and afraid to be Qrow, it couldn't be Qrow it couldn't be it-

There was a click, and then a small explosion. Qrow's scream echoed through the room as the small explosion ripped through his arm, shattering blood all over the floor and cracking bone. The arm was still attached but barely, it was so close it-

Yang didn't know when exactly her fist started flying, but the surprised cry as the kid stumbled forward was the greatest sound Yang had ever heard. Yang saw Ruby look up suddenly, surprised, as she followed through, stepping around to hit her target in the stomach and fire Ember Celica in to him.

He flew upwards, but quickly moved his spear to push away from Yang and land on the other side of the room. Staring him down as he regained his footing, Yang breathed heavily for a moment as she stared at him.

The kid looked at Yang's hair for a moment, and the sudden hatred in his eyes almost caught her off guard, before the realisation came.

"Huh." He noted. "Don't recognise you. Red's sister, then?"

"We can do this two ways." Yang said simply. "First, you surrender. I tie you up, knock you out, and let the people actually qualified to punish people deal with you."

"Or?" The kid asked.

"We do this my way." Yang continued, looking meaningfully at Qrow. "Where we'll start by giving you a taste of your own medicine, then see where we go from there."

The kid smiled. "Oh, that sound like fun. Go on, Yellow, see what you can do."

Yang leaned forward and fired back, propelling her forward as she slammed her head into the kid- Dito, probably- And knocked him into the wall. He twisted his spear up and detonated the tip, hitting Yang's Aura and straining it to breaking point, but Yang rushed through the explosion, grabbed him by the throat, and started punching. She squeezed him as tight as she could, watching him struggle for breath for a moment, as she tore the spear out of his grasp and threw it away. Then she punched, and fired Ember Celica right in his face.

His foot struck her stomach, and Yang took a step back in shock, but quickly threw Dito to the floor before he could take advantage of her distraction. He rolled, grabbed her leg, and pulled her off balance, before throwing a leg over her and leaning over her.

"You know what?" Dito asked. "Let's have some fun with this."

A hand reached around Yang's throat as she faced the ground, and a second grabbed her hair, pulling it back.

"What a disgusting colour." Dito continued, and he ripped, tearing the strands out. Yang didn't even have time to get angry at that, not with how furious she already was with Dito, and she buckled back to throw him off her, before spinning and punching him in the stomach to force him away.

"Aw, did I hit a sore spot?" Dito asked, as he picked up his spear. "How-"

He was cut off, as something hit him from behind. As he stumbled forward, Yang saw Ruby come into view as she shoulder charged him. Behind her, Qrow was standing where the chains previously were, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side as he panted in exhaustion next to the broken chains.

"Yang!" Ruby called, looking at her with scared eyes. "Don't let him-"

Dito reached back and grabbed the remains of the chains on Ruby's arms, using them to pull her over his shoulder and slam her into the ground in front of her.

"Ruby!" Qrow and Yang called at once, as they moved forward. Dito casually stabbed his spear back, hitting Qrow's leg with the crack of bone and sending him to the ground, before resting the point on Ruby's face and detaching a small explosive.

"So here's how this is going to work." Dito continued, as he knocked Yang to the side. "I'm going to have some fun with you, Yellow. If you try anything, I press this little button, and we see if your sister has enough Aura to not die instantly."

The explosive quickly stuck to Ruby's face, as Qrow tired to crawl towards Dito and Ruby. Dito stepped over the girl at his feet, towards Yang.

"So how much do you value your sister?" He asked.

Damn it. She couldn't do anything with Ruby at risk like that. Not while Dito still had his spear. Standing still as Dito drew closer, Yang glared at him.

"Oh, scary." Dito chuckled, as he reached for Yang's hair. Yang flinched as he grabbed it, and Dito smiled.

"Is this important to you?" He asked. "A shame. It's too much life Five's for me liking."

With a swipe of his spear, Yang felt her hair fall away, as everything below her neck was cut off in a single swipe. She shook in anger, not just at the lose, but what it meant.

There was no reason to do this. It didn't stop her fighting. It just pissed her off. Was he trying to get a reaction? Make her lash out without thinking, so he can claim it was her fault when he detonated and hurt Ruby?"

Yang's red eyes stared at Dito as she snarled, and with Dito focused on her, he didn't notice Qrow reaching for the explosive on Ruby's face.

"That's good." Dito continued. "Now, why don't you let me see you bleed?"

His spear stabbed forward, breaking Yang's Aura and impaling her stomach. She doubled over in pain, as Dito pressed a second button on it, and Yang felt more blades emerged from the spear impaled in her. Dito twisted his spear, leaving Yang in agony, as Qrow continued.

"How's it feel?" He asked. "Does it hurt?"

He pressed the button again, retracting the various blades, and pulled away. Yang groaned, as she struggled to stay on her feet.

Reaching for her hip, Yang tried to make a plan as she saw Qrow rip the explosive away from Ruby, even as her vision blurred. Dito's spear hit her again, stabbing through her leg, and she collapsed as he stirred the spear and spread the pain through her leg.

"Man, this must suck so much!" Dito laughed. "Oh, don't worry, you'll live. I'll just wait to give you the medical treatment here and there, leave you crippled for months. I want to see you completely helpless, Yellow. Unable to help yourself, unable to help others, not even able to do anything when I walk in and decide I want to see your blood painting the floor whenever I want..."

He laughed to himself as he pushed the spear further into Yang. Making the most of what strength she had, Yang reached for the spear, grabbing the shaft. Dito grabbed her arm and pushed the spear further, even as he squeezed until Yang heard bones break.

Working through the pain, Yang tore the spear to the side, feeling her arm flare up in agony as the spear cut through the muscle in her leg as it left her body. The weapon was torn from Dito's grasp, and his eyes widened in surprise, as Yang lifted Roman's cane from her belt and let the illusion shatter as she fired it into his chest.

Being forced back, Dito let go off Yang, and cried in pain as the girl collapsed in front of him. Feeling her blood drain out, Yang pointed the cane at him and fired repeatedly, forcing him to block and deflect and occasionally be hit, until the cane ran out of ammo. Trying to drag herself forward, Yang couldn't move her left arm, so she dropped the cane in her right and fired Ember Celica, feeling herself slid backwards with each shot she was unable to brace for.

Eventually, Dito's hand grabbed Yang's, and pointed Ember Celica away.

"Oh, but you're fucked now." Dito laughed, as he put his other hand on Yang's face and drove in his nails, cutting her in several places. "Let's see how much I can make you hurt before-"

There was the sound of sudden movement, and Dito tore away, his nails cutting Yang as he did so. Looking up with the last of her strength, Yang saw Ruby standing in front of her, looking at Dito with hurt silver eyes as she pointed his own spear at him.

"Rub..." Yang tried to speak, before her voice failed her.

Damn it. She'd tried to save her sister, and now her little sister was saving her. She just hoped... It'd been...

Enough...

Yang felt her eyes tear up as her vision went black, and the tears fell freely for a moment.

Why was she never strong enough?

 **[X] Perspective Change**  
 **-[X] Ruby fights Dito**  
 **-[X] Two fights Five**


	40. Arise

**[X] Perspective Change**  
 **-[X] Two fights Five**

The blue-haired woman brought her sword down, shattering the rooftop next to Five and forcing her sister to jump away to avoid falling into the collapsing building. The woman in blue pushed forward, pressuring Five down to ground level where the rest of the force had gathered.

Five laughed as she spun her spear around her, before apparently obliging Two's obvious intent and falling from the rooftop. Two followed her down, landing on the ground next to her sister.

"You could have hit me there, easily." Five noted, with a laugh. "What's wrong, sister? Can't bring yourself to strike me?"

Five's spear shot forward, forcing Two to deflect it, causing the spear to barely ruffle her hair.

Behind her, she heard the clashing of blades, as Professor Port blocked two wire blades, one wielded by Velvet and the other by Coco. Where the big gun had gone, Two didn't know. It had stopped firing a bit after Yang ran away, and Coco had been swearing a bit around that time.

The guy who looked like Santa shaved his beard and turned it into a moustache pushed back his two students, holding them at bay without going on the offensive.

There was only three people on each side here, and Port was dealing with two of Five's people, which meant-

Cent slid into view behind Five and stabbed at her, his blade bouncing off Five's back as he struck suddenly. Five twirled her spear to hit behind her, and Two stepped forward, trying to disarm her.

"Please, Five." Two asked. "Just stop. We can-"

"But I don't want to stop." Five replied. "I'm having so much fun!"

"Five!" Two exclaimed. "People are getting hurt by this! Why can't-"

"Nobody would have been hurt if people just let me have my way." Five interrupted, pushing Cent back and going on the offensive. Two twisted her claymore sword around to push away Five's lazy jabs. "Melanie would still be with her sister if your yellow friend didn't try to look into me, Roman wouldn't be hospitalised if he didn't betray me-"

"What about Ruby?" Two asked, as she batted away Five's spear and stabbed forward, as Cent did the same from behind Five. Five ducked under the two swords, and Kicked Cent in the stomach with enough force to send him through a wall. Several more crashing sounds echoed as Cent kept going through walls.

"What about Ruby?" Five asked. "She's adorable! Have you seen her? She's got the most beautiful eyes-"

"That doesn't justify kidnapping!" Two objected, watching as Five deflected another sword strike and took the chance to punch Five in the chest, knocking her back. "That's, like, a really bad thing! People can't take people away without permission!"

"She should give permission soon enough." Five chuckled. "She's still resisting for now, but Dito stayed behind to break her down. If I tell her about how the people here to save her suffered because she kept resisting, she might just break down to avoid a repeat."

"It doesn't count if you have to use your song to force them to give permission!" Two objected.

Five hit Two with the end of her spear, knocking her away, and turned to the battle between Port, Velvet and Coco.

"Coco, dear, is there anything wrong with influencing people to follow you of their own free will?"

"That's how it works, Five!" Coco called, as she tried to punch the Professor.

"Good girl." Five praised. Coco gave a pleased smile, before Port grabbed her arm and held her between him and Velvet.

"That doesn't make it true!" Two objected.

"Yes it does!" Coco shouted.

"I think you're outnumbered here." Five continued.

"Stop that!" Two scolded. "You're misbehaving, little sister. One's not here, so I'll have to be the responsible one."

"Oh yes." Five continued, a sudden bitterness in her voice. "You don't have a choice, do you? You'd just love to not put in effort with your sisters, would you?"

Two frowned. "Five, what are you-"

"Did you even look for us?" Five asked, stabbing forward and striking into Two's chest. "It wasn't like I was hiding."

"Five, what are you-"

A sudden musical note rang out, and Five vanished. Two turned around just in time to see the spear coming at her, striking upwards into her chin and sending her flying.

Two sang out herself, and the world seemed to slow down. She watched as Five leapt above her, preparing to stab her downwards into another building, and Five blocked the spear's tip. The force behind the blow pushed her downwards, and Two crashed through the roof and top two floors before she caught her footing.

Feeling the rushing wind, Two held her sword behind her and felt it clash with her sister's spear.

"Do you know how long it took me to find you?" Five asked, whispering in Two's ear. "How many days it was before I heard about your little orphanage? Here's a hint, it's in your big sister's name."

Two spun around to look at Five, as the yellow-haired intoner struck Two's hand with the butt of her spear, knocking her claymore out of Two's hand.

"I was so happy." Five noted. "I watched you for days. I waited for a week, for when you'd notice me or find me. But I guess that little orphanage of yours was more important than finding the little sisters who relied on you, wasn't it?"

Two's heart plummeted. "Five, I didn't-"

"No, you didn't." Five dismissed, stabbing at Two's stomach as the spear bounced off her Aura.

Two looked at her sister, her breath tightening. Five was angry at her. And... Five had a good reason. She'd been near her sister for how long, and only found out when Yang told her? She hadn't noticed. She hadn't looked. She was too busy trying to help the children, trying to help every time Carmine recoiled from an open flame or trying to make sure Nightingale was happy enough that her Undine didn't go on a rampage trying to take her away.

She couldn't leave the kids be, but she focused too much on them and then she and Cent would relax at night because Cent thought she was overworked, but she should have done more, she was one of her oldest sisters, only Zero and One were older, and Two should have been looking for her younger sisters, that was her job, older sisters had to look out for the younger sisters and help them and make sure they know to do the right thing-

Oh.

Was that why Five was acting like she was? She was the youngest, and always needed a stern hand to know when to be responsible even when One was there. Was Five acting out and doing all these bad things because she didn't have her role models to follow?

Could Two have stopped all of this if she just knew about Five earlier?

"I think you're being unfair here." A voice spoke up, and Two looked behind Five, to watch Cent climb through a hole in the wall.

"You-" Five began, but Cent raised a finger, put a hand on his knee, and panted from exhaustion for a moment.

"Just hold on... Hit a lot of walls..." He managed to wheeze out. "Had to run to get here..."

Taking a deep breath, Cent wiped his forehead, and looked at Five.

"Where was I?" He asked, suddenly sounding in tip-top shape. "Oh right, you're being a bit unfair to Two, didn't you?"

"Who are you to judge?" Five asked. "Even if you are handsome, this is family business-"

"Two's the most wonderful person I've ever met." Cent interrupted. "She's caring, she's kind, she always tries her best. She's willing to put up with me being an idiot and even if she isn't the smartest, she knows that, and tries her best anyway."

Two looked at Cent, surprised by his words. Cent's sung her praise before, but he always had that tone about him, the semi-joking voice that he used to tease Two and embarrass her. This, on the other hand...

"So she didn't find you." Cent continued. "And? You found her, and chose to wait. You knew she was looking after all those orphans. Right out of a warzone, traumatised as hell, people who needed her. And you're mad because she didn't drop everything to look for someone who was fine without her? That's rather selfish of you."

Five looked at Cent, her back to Two, and after a moment, she laughed.

"I'm sorry, where you saying something?" Five asked. "I was too busy measuring your shoes. You know what they say-"

She sang, leaping forward and holding her spear over Cent's heart.

"-Those with big feet need to learn to shut up."

Eyes wide, Two sprang forward and barged into Five, knocking her away from Five and shoulder charging her through the wall of the building. Five flew out of it, crashing out of the wall and into the wall of another building. The building shuddered as Five continued being thrust through them.

Two watched after the hole Five had disappeared into for a moment, before she felt her eyes tear up and she collapsed to her knees.

"Two!" Cent called, grabbing her shoulders. "What's wrong?"

"I'm a terrible sister..." She whimpered.

"No, no you're not." Cent interrupted. "You're a wonderful person, Two. You love everyone so much, you always try your best, and you blame yourself for things you couldn't help. If you were a terrible sister, you wouldn't be feeling terrible right now."

"But-"

"Don't you even dare blame yourself for what Five's been doing." Cent insisted. "Yang's uncle came to tell her Ruby was kidnapped before the airship even landed. Even if you had known about Five, she'd already been doing bad things long before you were around. I don't care if she blames you, do you think she'd stop just because you were here? Did you think she'd even let you know what she was doing?"

"But-"

Cent put a finger on Two's lips, as he pulled her to her feet. "Don't. You're not the bad guy here, Two. You didn't do anything wrong. You're here to stop Five now and help Yang save her sister, right?"

Two nodded, as Cent wiped a tear from her eye.

"Don't think right from wrong right now." Cent said, as he picked up her sword and gave it back to her. "Don't let what Five's saying throw you off. Just do what you came to do, and worry about it later. Don't let Five talk you out of doing what you have to do."

Two sniffled, but nodded again. "Y-You're right..."

"Of course I am." Cent replied. "I'm me, remember? I'm always right. That's why I'm right handed."

Smiling at the statement, Two wiped a hand over her eyes before taking her claymore back.

Five suddenly let out a large, musical screech, and a golden light flowed out from her for a moment. The light faded after a brief burst, and the song echoed through the city for a moment.

"What was that?" Cent asked.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Two said, as Five pulled herself out of the building she had been thrown into, walking out through the wall on the bottom floor and looking up to where Two and Cent were at.

"Let's finish this quickly." Cent advised. "You can apologise to Five after everyone's safe, right?"

"You're right, Cent." Two nodded. "Let's go."

Letting her melody out with a blue light, the blue-haired Intoner left the building she was in, punching downwards as she hit the ground and cratering the ground as she hit it. Five's melody joined hers, and a golden light burnt off her.

The Song flowed through Two and the air around her. She felt strong. Stronger than she had in a while. But she needed to resolve this already. She needed to push herself _further_.

Throwing her sword into the air, Two scrapped her arm across it as it fell, allowing it to bypass her Aura and drawing blood. With a second gesture, Two caught her sword as it fell and scattered the blood all across her body.

It wasn't enough for long, but it would do.

Her song grew louder, the Song flowing through her more and more, as the Intoner let her true strength emerge. The blue light clung to her, and she glowed with power as she charged at Five.

Her arm wrapped around Five as Two grabbed her, throwing her away and through several buildings. Five recovered after the fifth one she was thrown through, but Two was faster, _stronger_ , and before her feet could touch the ground properly, Two had thrown her spear away and piledrived her sister into the ground.

Five got to her feet, only for Two to bring down her sword on her sister, knocking her down, damaging her Aura, and Five's song quickly shifted to form a barrier to knock Two away. Two pressed a button on her sword and let the claymore's blade fall off and shift as she held the hilt, while the barrier knocked Two into a wall. Two headbutted the wall, and shattered it, and another barrier appeared to keep pushing her back.

As the wall behind her collapsed, Two felt the last of the blood evaporate away from her, leaving her unstained and causing the Song flowing through her to weaken. The cut in her arm had healed, and Five chuckled.

"Is that..." She coughed. "All?"

Two pressed the button on her sword hilt, and her claymore exploded, the mine throwing shrapnel everyone and devastating Five's Aura. Five was thrown back, her song cut off and her golden glow extinguished, and Two stepped up and walked to her.

"You can't take much more of this, Five." Two said. "Please. Just stop. We don't have to fight any more."

Five chuckled. "Why would I stop now?"

Five set off into a run, jumping above Two and barging through the wall above her.

Hearing Five's footsteps echo above her, Two turned and ran after her, singing as she heard Five start to keep pace. Sister chased sister for a moment, bursting through building after building, until Five cried out. Jumping up to the floor she was on, Two saw Cent on the attack. Five deflected Cent's sword with her bare hands, but she was clearly at a disadvantage without her spear.

Two rushed behind Five, wrapping her arms around and trapping his sister in place.

"It's over." Two said." Just stop."

Five let out another musical screech, but Cent stabbed, taking Five's Aura to breaking point before she stopped.

"What were you even trying there?" Cent asked. "I know Two, I know how some of this Intoner stuff works, but I didn't sense much in your song other than you trying to be loud-"

There was a sudden sound of flesh striking flesh, and Cent doubled over in pain, as some sort of kid ripped the sword from his grasp.

"Dito-" Five said, and the kid stabbed forward, barely missing Five as he struck at Two. Two let her sister go, rushing to Cent's side as he regained his footing, and stared at the kid.

The boy, Dito, was panting in exhaustion. His shirt was cut, and blood flowing from under the cut, while the bloody patches revealed cuts along his arms and face. His face was slightly burnt on the left side, and he gave Two and Cent a look of frustration.

"I've been having a bad day..." The kid panted, wiping some blood away from his eyes. "Did you have to call for me, Five? I could've beaten that little brat if I had some time to find a spare weapon somewhere..."

"Shush, Dito." Five aid, approaching him from behind and whispering in his eyes. "This has been harder then I thought, so it's time."

A sudden fear filled Two. "No, don't-"

Five wiped her arm across the blood on Dito, then sang louder, glowing gold as she picked Dito up and ran backwards. Running after him, Cent right behind her, Two looked up to see the two standing on a rooftop as Five stopped glowing. Then her melody intensified further, and the golden shockwave forced Cent back a step.

"Behold the Fifth Song!" Declared Dito, as he spread his arms either side. "Grand Light of Antiquity!"

"No!" Two screamed. "Cent, we have to stop them!"

Cent stepped forward, before Five's song pushed him back. "Go!" He shouted.

"The great power made manifest..." Dito continued. "The ceremony of glorious arrival..."

Two ran, forcing herself through the shockwave as she exited the building she was in and rapidly approached the one Five was on top of. She tried to jump to them, but the shockwave forced her right back down again.

"Burn thine eyes on the punishing lance of divine retribution!" The Disciple continued, roaring.

If One was here, she'd be able to stop Five. She was stronger, smarter, more powerful, this shockwave would be nothing to her. Pushing off the ground as hard as she could, Two sprinted up the side of the building, until the force of her foot caused the wall to collapse, resulting in her ending up inside the building.

"I, Dito, summon thee in my name..."

Singing her song at the top of her lungs to block the shockwave, Two jumped, ignoring the pain of severeal floors being smashed into her head and the shockwave trying to push her back.

"Phanuel-"

Two pushed through the last floor and through the roof, just as her ascent slowed and she began to fall. At the pinnacle of her rise, she grabbed Dito's leg.

She didn't want to do this. She didn't want to hurt him. But if she let Five and her Disciple summon her angel, then all the non-Intoners, the Professor and Coco and Velvet and Yang and everyone would be in danger.

"-Arise!"

Two slammed downwards, throwing Dito into the floor hard enough to shatter it and send him down to the next floor. A great golden light pierced the night, and a shadow quickly blocked most of it out, as Dito's body stopped moving. Blood pooled underneath him, a Two landed on the ground next to him.

Five landed a moment later, grabbing Two and throwing her out the building. For a moment, Two flew through the air. Then, she hit something hard, which knocked the air out of her.

She hit the ground a moment later, took a moment to regain her footing, and looked up.

It was like a giant black crab, with glowing golden marks covering it. It lacked the usual big meaty claws, instead having two large pincers attached to a tail flap. The tail pointed at Two, firing off a steam of water with enough force that she was thrown backwards, the building collapsing on top of her as the jet fired through. Two gritted her teeth, and started singing, forcing the rubble away as she stood, staring off against the Angel that Five had called down.

...This was bad.

Out of the corner of her eye, Two saw Five flying the scene, carrying her Disciple even as the glow of her song enveloped his skull.

Her sister was getting away. Was all of this mess really going to be for nothing?

 **[X] Chase after Five. Other people would fight off the Angel, Phanuel. She just needed to catch Intoner and Disciple and she could force them to send their summon away.**  
 **[X] Grab Cent and summon her own Angel. The others would have to fight Phanuel to keep it from interfering, but as soon as it was called up, everyone else could just chase Five down.**


	41. My Blue Angel

**[X] Grab Cent and summon her own Angel. The others would have to fight Phanuel to keep it from interfering, but as soon as it was called up, everyone else could just chase Five down.**

Five's song hovered in the air around Phanuel. Not on an audible level, but Two could feel it in the air, that _power_ , the song threatening to block out all other sensation. Two quickly started screeching out her song, as strong as she could.

It didn't push back against Five's much, but it helped. Five's song was currently an enemy action. The Song Two was calling up was hers. It was reliable. Safe. She could let it out an trust her song was helping her out.

It sure made it easier to focus on running past Phanuel. She tried darting under it's legs, but it shuffled quickly, stabbing down in front of Two, before kicking up and sending her flying. Two braced herself, as she was thrown through a building, trying not to grit her teeth a she went through pretty much every wall and floor before being kicked out of the top floor.

Ow. That hurt.

She looked down, saw how high she was, and immediately started scream-singing to create a barrier behind her, to block her upwards momentum, and then so she could kick down and start running towards ground level.

Focus on the barrier focus on the barrier don't forget to make one under her, don't forget to keep making the pathway she was running down on, she'd fall if she doesn't focus on the barrier keep it up maintain it One would be so much better at this focus focu-

Two suddenly leaped to the side as Phanuel's water cannon shot out at her, barely missing her. Phew, that was a close one. Another second and-

She wasn't focusing on the barrier anymore, was she?

The question was answered when Two slammed into the rooftop of another building, smashing through it and leaving a crater in the second floor before she stopped.

"...Owie." She moaned, as she got to her feet. Looking out the windows, she saw Phanuel aiming at the bottom of the building.

Two started running instantly, leaping out the side of the building as Phanuel brought it down, looking back to watch it crumble as she landed on another rooftop. The water cannon slowly shifted to the side, and Two kept running.

Just needed to wait for Cent to find her. She could probably look for Cent, but it was still night and it was dark out and he always wore black so it'd be easier for him to find the glowy song stuff. Some stuff was just easier to see in the dark. Like a giant glowing crab angel thing full of loud song magic.

"Cent!" Two called. "We're doing the thing!"

"We're doing the thing?" Cent replied, a few buildings across, even if his voice was muffled by distance and the loudness of the Angel behind Two.

"We're doing the thing!" Two confirmed.

"Doing the thing!" Cent called. Phanuel turned towards him and fired, levelling multiple buildings while shooting it's aquatic cutter cannon thing at him.

"Cent!" Two screamed, panic in her voice.

"I'm fine!" Cent replied.

Phanuel fired again, as Two got closer and closer. The blue-haired woman burst through the wall just as the water shot in, leaping at the man in black and wrapping her body around him as the water struck them both.

Two sang to throw up a barrier, blocking the rubble for a second while she let the force of the aquatic cannon throw her and Cent out of the building. They slammed into another building, and as the force slowed down, Two shifted her grasp on Cent and pulled him out of the building.

Barging out the right of the building while it got hit by Phanuel's next beam, Two ran.

"Trying to do the thing might be a bit hard." Cent noted. "I mean, even if we lose Phanuel there, doing the thing is hardly subtle."

"I could try hitting it a bit to slow it down?" Two suggested.

"Don't tire yourself." Cent told her. "Port's around here somewhere, and Taiyang hasn't been seen in a while. He should have seen Five's thing. Let's just try and get some distance until they can hold it off for a bit."

"But they could get hurt!" Two objected.

Cent bit his lip as he looked towards Phanuel, which had lost track of its targets but was charging through buildings in an attempt to find them.

"...Let's just do what we can." Cent replied. "They'll get hurt anyway if they have to help you fight it without us calling in our own Angels."

Two let out a small scream, punching the wall next to her in frustration. The wall shattered, and the building groaned as one of it's main supports disappeared. Then, a sudden fear in her mind, she turned to Phanuel.

Fortunately, it was currently collapsing another building, and didn't hear Two being an idiot and almost giving her position away.

"I... I need to calm down a bit." Two breathed heavily. "I could've given myself away a bit, don't wanna ruin this..."

"I mean, technically, you can't ruin this." Cent pointed out. "This place is already in ruins. By definition, you can't ruin it, unless you use the word wrong."

Two smiled at the statement. Cent was so silly, like that. Always saying things that sounded ridiculous because it made her smile and made her feel better. How did he always manage to sound so confident when saying stuff like that?

Cent reached into his pocket to pull out his scroll, and looked somewhat disappointed as he pulled out a pile of crushed metal.

"...Huh." He noted. "Five hit me harder then I thought. Is your alright?"

Two reached into hers, and pulled out one in similar condition.

"I don't think this will work." Two pointed out. "Maybe if we shout really loud we can find someone?"

"I think I remember where the teacher guy was." Cent noted. "He was..."

He pointed behind Phanuel.

"That way, I think?"

Two followed his hand, and frowned.

"That seems like it could be a problem." She said.

"No problem." Cent replied. "We can just sneak around and-"

Phanuel turned, and fired it's cannon in every direction as it spun around.

"Going now." Two declared, picking up Cent and dashing up a building. The ground where they were standing a moment earlier cratered, and as Two carried Cent above the buildings, Phanuel spotted the two of them and trailed after them. The cannon stopped short of them, and Phanuel started running. It's crab-like legs let it run over the rubble easily enough, and the building in it's path were easy to throw aside. Two began singing as she felt Five's song within it starting to distract her from her other senses, and as she started glowing, landed on top of another building.

Phanuel charged through the building as Two landed on it, and she started running, jumping to another building as she shifted her grasp on Cent to put him on her back.

"We might not be able to run for much longer." Cent noted. "Fighting isn't really an option for long, but I could try and hold it off for as long as I can-"

"I'm not leaving you here to face it alone." Two insisted.

"Of course not." Cent replied. "It doesn't look like it has a face, so I can't face it. That's how words work."

Two ignored him. "I'm not letting you get hurt if I can stop it!"

"That's very courageous of you." Cent noted. "I can't help but feel like this is backwards though. Isn't the knight in shining armour usually the man in the relationship?"

"Get stronger then." Two replied. "You can carry me around all you like when it's the easie-"

The building they were standing on collapsed, and Two started jumping away again. "Time to run, no standing still again, stillness is bad."

She ran down the falling rubble, trying to get lower. High up, they had too much time to fall. She had to get low.

Jumping to another piece of falling rooftop, Two quickly moved off that and jumped to another building. She heard the rushing water behind her, and jumped off the building to another across the way.

"Which way was Port again?" Two asked.

"The other way." Cent noted.

...Oh.

Two looked behind her, then quickly jumped away from the water cannon once more.

"That might be a problem." Two fretted. "I don't suppose you could make him be in a different direction."

"I have yet to master that power." Cent replied.

"Oh."

There was a sudden explosion behind Two, and Phanuel recoiled slightly.

"Did I do that?" Two asked.

"I'd be surprised if you did." Said another voice. Two looked down, and say Yang's dad, running on the building below her.

Jumping up to the rooftop, Two waited for a moment for Taiyang to follow her up.

"I was wondering what all that noise was." Taiyang noted. "Did something happen to your scrolls?"

"I can't get mine working." Cent spoke up. "Don't know why, it's only in a million pieces."

"...I see." Taiyang noted. "Well, Peter's taken Coco and Velvet and gone to find my daughters, and you looked like you needed a hand."

"We need to do the thing." Two said. "But- We should run."

The building shook as Phanuel charged through it. For a moment, Taiyang looked at Two, and then he nodded.

"Do the thing!' He shouted. "I'll distract it!"

He ran down at it, moving to attack, and Two continued carrying Cent away.

Quickly running up to the top of a building, Two looked back, as Taiyang ran from Phanuel in the other direction, making it look the other way.

"Ready to do the thing?" Two asked.

"Doing the thing." Cent replied, with a smirk.

In response, Two started singing. The Song within her boiled over, flooding, overflowing, dominating, reaching out and grabbing the world around her. In Two's mind, the outside world faded.

There was no night sky. There was no city. There was no Phanuel, there was no Taiyang or anyone else. There was only the Song. The Song was the world and the world was the Song. She saw nothing, touched nothing, saw nothing, tasted nothing, smelt nothing. There was only the sound of the Song.

And then a sensation in the void of only sound. Just out of reach, Cent was standing, reaching out for her. There for her. Helping her. The Song was her power but she was too strong, even with her body she was too strong, she couldn't guide it she was guided by it and Cent was there to guide her through guiding the song so she could do this.

She wasn't One she wasn't powerful she wasn't smart she wasn't cunning she was-

Strong, she could feel from Cent. Stronger than she thought she was. Strong enough to last through this. The Song was hers, the Angels were hers. All she had to do was let him help.

Cent was with her, and he would never fail her. All she had to do was help him do this.

Feeling her song shatter through the blue, two beings descended on Cent's call, and Two allowed her song to fade from her throat. Her senses returned to her, and she saw a faint blue glow around her and Cent, and Cent panted in exhaustion slightly as he looked down at the sight.

Two blue giants, clad in armour, kneeled before Two and Cent, facing towards Phanuel. The giant crab had turned to look at them at some point, and between the two, Taiyang was on the ground, soaked to the bone and clutching to his side, as he tried to stand.

"Egregori." Two whispered.

One of them looked up, and extended an arm. It stretched out like elastic, stopping next to Taiyang, and grabbed him as it pulled back. It's arm shrank back to its original size, and it dropped Taiyang at it's feet.

Two took a moment to breath, before she jumped down to his side.

"Hey, are you okay?" She asked.

"I'm fine." He panted. "That thing just hits hard."

Two looked up. "Well, so do my Angels so we should give them some room."

Taiyang nodded, and started running up the building where Cent was. As he left, Two watched Egregori as the two of them looking down started standing, each of them firing a beam of energy from it's faces.

The much larger Phanuel responded by firing it's water cannon, matching the force of both of the Egregori's beams for a moment. A shockwave spread from where the attacks met, and the buildings caught near the clash shook and shuddered before collapsing under the power being thrown around. The ground underneath the Egregori's burnt up from the heat of the attack, and water of Phanuel's attack, though much stronger, much more focused, kept evaporating before it could reach either of the two attackers.

As both ranged attacks failed, the Egregori rushed forward, meeting Phanuel's charge with one of their own. When they clashed, a shockwave shook out, forcing Two to shield her eyes from the dust even as Cent and Taiyang were forced back.

Fatigue struck the Intoner, who struggled to stand for a moment.

Focus. She needed to focus. She needed to concentrate.

One of the Egregori slowed down, punching forward as its arm extended over it's twins shoulder, striking the front of Phanuel. It's fist made it stumble, and the second Egregori reached up, clinging to the hand above it and using it to vault upwards, jumping on top of Phanuel and starting to charge up it's beam again.

The giant crab monster shook it's body, slamming into the buildings next to it and crushing the Egregori and causing a building to collapse on top of both. The Egregori's beam fired wildly into the distance. several more large buildings having their lower layers destroyed. There was a great sound of grinding steel as they collapsed, falling.

"Oh boy." Cent winced. " _That's_ where teacher man was, wasn't he?"

Two paled. "Is he-"

"Peter's fine." Taiyang interrupted. "Trust me, that man is practically immortal. The last time I thought he was dead, he popped up two months later just in time for my birthday."

"That's nice of him." Two noted, as she looked over at the collapsing skyscrapers in the distance.

"...He'll be fine." Taiyang replied, mostly to himself. "We still have a job to do, don't we?"

Phanuel burst out of the collapsed building, the Egregori still clinging to him. The second Egregori, on the ground, rushed forward and grabbed at its leg, pulling it off balance. The Egregori on top of Phanuel hit the crab monster down. With its leg off balance and the force being hit down on it, Phanuel collapsed, and quickly fired its water cannon to try and clear away the Angel on it's face.

"Where did Five go?" Two asked. "She was carrying his Disciple, but I didn't see which way she went after she summoned her Angel..."

"She might have gone back to her airship." Taiyang noted. "If she was trying to get away, that would make sense. And I haven't heard from Qrow..."

"I don't know." Cent interrupted. "That shitty Disciple of Five's said something about not winning a fight, and Yang did run off that way after Five implied that Qrow had been beaten. They might not be able to go back to the airship if he was driven out."

"Where else would she be, then?" Taiyang asked.

"...Melanie and Miltia." Two interrupted. "Five said Miltia had been beaten, and if Port has the other two, then Melanie's her only ally who hasn't been beaten yet. She might be seeking back-up, so she can have someone look after her injured Disciple while she comes after us again."

There was another beam of energy from one of the Egregori as it fired against Phanuel, which staggered to it's feet and fired, notat the enemies, but at Two.

Taiyang jumped away, and Two followed a moment later, Cent still on her back.

"So where are we going, then?" Taiyang asked.

 **[X] Go to the Airship. If Five's there, they fight her. If not, then they can probably hijack it to go look for Five. If the flying ship doesn't become a target for Phanuel**  
 **[X] Track down Miltia through her scroll or scanners. Even if Five doesn't go to Melanie, leaving Miltia at the mercy of a crazed for wasn't a smart thing to do...**

 **Perspective change?**

 **[X] No, keep watching through Two's eyes.**  
 **[X] Check up on Ruby's point of view.**  
 **[X] Go see what Miltia's been up to.**


	42. Lifeline

**[X] Track down Miltia through her scroll or scanners. Even if Five doesn't go to Melanie, leaving Miltia at the mercy of a crazed for wasn't a smart thing to do...**  
 **[X] Check up on Ruby's point of view.**

The machine beeped, as Ruby sat by it. The pace and pitch of the beeping kept changing, but after a few seconds, would return to a normal, healthy rhythm. After the first few times, most people would stop worrying. Every time there was the slightest change, it was like a knife through Ruby's heart.

Her older sister was on the bed in front of her, a mask over her face to force her to breathe. Bandages were wrapped around her arms and legs to stop the blood flow, and there was a large metal strip all around her torso to prevent the wounds from getting any worse.

Ruby looked over to the spear she had left by the door. It had two addition to it beyond being a spear. The way it deployed explosives, and the way it unfolded to grow more blades. The layout of the blades after being stabbed out wasn't useful for combat, angled mostly to be hard to remove without folding it again, and even folding it up again would cause more cutting. The bomb deployment didn't shoot it out, stuck to place, and activated on a cue rather than a timer.

That wasn't a weapon of combat. That was a tool for torture.

Turning away from it, Ruby's eyes turned down to Yang again. Her breathing was forced, the machine forcing oxygen down her lungs and draining the air out again as it went into her system. The machine around her torso kept her heart beating, and tried to prevent the wounds in her insides from being agitated by the movement of it. The machines was trying to kickstart her Aura so she'd start healing, and was pumping blood into her until then to stop her from bleeding out.

How bad were her internal wounds? Dito had been twisting the spear inside her, Qrow had taken one look at the scan then put it far away from her view, and even with all the blood put into her she just looked so pale. So frail.

Yang wasn't supposed to be frail. She was supposed to be strong. She was supposed to face any problem with a joke and a laugh, let Ruby know it was going to be okay, not...

"Hey." A voice spoke up, and Ruby looked over at her uncle. Qrow was resting by a machine, one covering his arm, recovering while his arm healed.

Yang knew he had other wounds. None as bad as Yangs, but he was stabbed and cut a lot. He'd tried to save her, and Dito had made him pay for it. He wasn't supposed to look weak either. He always seemed to treat things casually, like nothing really mattered to him, like nothing ever bothered him. Seeing him just helplessly screaming in pain because he tried to save her, desperately clawing towards her because even then he wanted to help...

"You alright, kid?" Qrow asked, with an uneasy smile.

You're hurt, she wanted to say. The words died in her throat, as she remembered how he had screamed when Dito had blown up his arm. Ruby almost didn't believe that the arm was still intact, let alone that someone could move while in that much pain.

Qrow followed Ruby's gaze to the machine over his arm, and sighed.

"Yeah, that's not too good." He noted. "But I'm fine. Forget about me."

She wanted to saw something, but words were so difficult, at this time.

Her uncle Qrow was injured bad, and even if he said he was fine, Ruby knew at least a bit of how bad wounds can get before healing stops being an option. His muscles had been ripped to shred, his bone shattered. There wasn't enough there to heal. Even if Qrow got back to Vale and saw a dedicated healer right now, the best they'd be able to do was stop it hurting until...

She looked down again.

"Hey, Ruby." Qrow spoke up, as she looked away. "I know what you're thinking. It's not your fault."

Of course it was her fault. Qrow had basically lost his arm because he was trying to save her. Yang had nearly died because she had tried to save her. If she'd just given in to Five, if she'd just not gotten caught, if she'd just never been around in the first place-

"Ruby." Qrow cut through her train of thought with a harsh comment. "I'm serious. You didn't do anything wrong."

She didn't do anything right either. Even when Qrow managed to get her off the wall-

 _The spear in hand, pointed at Dito, Ruby tried to keep her hand from shaking and tried to ignore Yang collapsed on the ground. Her breath caught in her throat, and she tried to just focus on staring Dito down._

 _"Oh, this is new." The boy said, clapping. "Little Red's got all-"_

 _In a flash of red, Ruby stepped forward, slamming the spear into his chest and knocking him back. Don't let him talk, Ruby thought to herself. He may seem timid around Five but once you got him alone he spoke like anything human about him had been twisted, hearing him talk about the beauty in Qrow's screams was like a nightmare come to life. She was barely holding it together as it was, if he managed to unnerve her enough to turn the tables-_

 _Forget it, she thought. Focus on the fight._

 _Dito recovered from his stumble, and Ruby twirled his spear, striking him with the ends for a moment and pushing him back, before leaping out of his arms reach and cutting him. His aura trembled, and he reached up to catch the spear. Undeterred, Ruby turned while keeping her grip on it and ran, swinging it around as she did so, and stopped right in front of the wall. Dito was thrown into it, and in the half second he let go of the spear, Ruby was able to find the button on the spear._

 _A small explosive dripped out of the top of the lance, and Dito's eyes widened in shock before Ruby detonated it, whipping at her own Aura even as Dito took the full force of the detonation._

 _Dito recovered quickly, but Ruby pushed into him almost immediately. Out of the corner or her eye, Ruby saw Qrow grab Yang, and start trying to carry her out._

 _Getting to help, Ruby realised._

 _Turning away, Ruby collided with Dito again, even as he tried to get room. She had the reach with the spear, and Dito was slower then her. Even if he could hit harder then her, he wouldn't get the chance to do it._

 _She just had to focus. Not think about how Yang was hurt bad, was dying. Not think about how it was her fault. Clear her head and-_

 _There was a vague memory, from her childhood. It was hazy and the context wasn't there, but it was one of the few memories Ruby had of when her mother was alive. It wasn't much, merely a small melody. A lullaby, and one that was calming even to the day._

 _Repeating it to herself mentally, Ruby charged into Dito-_

And even after that, Dito had gotten away. Yang had been barely holding on when Ruby had gone to check on her, and Qrow had nearly made the wounds on his arms so much worse trying to get the machines set up to save her.

She couldn't stop Dito from running to help when Five called for him, she didn't know how to help Qrow help Yang and just had to watch, she...

Tears pooled under her eyes, as her breathing came out haggard. Over in his corner, Qrow sat up and pulled at the machine his arm was in, but wasn't able to pull it away. He looked at it, but didn't move.

He wanted to console her, Ruby knew. But he didn't want to upset her by showing off his ruined arm again. Wasn't that just a perfect example of this situation? He couldn't try to do anything to make her feel better because all he could do was make her feel worse.

There was a groan from the other side of the medical area, and Ruby turned to face the general direction.

...Oh, right. Roman was in here too.

"Spare me the family drama..." He complained. "Following soap operas is hard enough if you haven't watched from the start, I don't have any stakes in watching this sadness."

"Thank you for your consideration." Qrow muttered drily.

"A tad ungrateful?" Roman asked, looking up from his bed with a hand on his stomach. "I go through this to get your niece out of the fire-"

"Your friend Neo is the reason Five got her in the first place." Qrow replied with a glare.

"And I think everything's worked out." Roman replied. "Well, unless Five wins. That wouldn't be too good. I wasn't too satisfied with the whole 'Break you down with addictive songs until you're just dancing on her strings and willing to give anything for her' deal, and between you and me, I don't really want to see what she'll do when she's feeling vengeful."

"Thank you for your life story." Qrow drawled. "It was a great learning experience I finally put together the secret of sleeping with my eyes open."

Ruby tried to enjoy the way the two of them bickered, but then she looked down again and saw Yang again.

The room around her went silent and she looked down, sighing, and after a moment, Roman spoke up.

"You know." Roman Torchwick spoke up. "Lil' Neo's getting ready to go, in a moment. We've put too much on taking down Five to let failure be an option. Five was talking about you earlier, too. Dreaming of being a hero, apparently? Might do you some good to go for a run and go help Neo punch people in the face-"

"Like hell." Qrow suddenly snarled. "Do you think I'm going to let her go anywhere near Five again?"

"Oh, sure, we'll do this your way." Roman dismissed. "We'll let her sit around and wallow in her misery. She's really good at it, from the looks of things. A real champion."

Qrow curled his good hand into a fist, then looked over at Ruby.

"You're strong, Ruby." He said. "Stronger then you think. You'll be fine, right?"

The way the machines were maintaining Yang's breathing was painful. It was methodical and rationed out. Force air into her. Wait a second. Suck it out. It wasn't natural, it wasn't normal. It wasn't right.

Qrow muttered something under his breath.

"And she nails the landing." Roman continued. "Tens across the board. Gold medal moper, ladies and gentlemen."

"Keep talking, Torchwick. Give me an excuse."

"Someone's got a temper." Roman muttered. "I see where your other niece gets it from."

"There's gotta be something better..." Qrow whispers to himself. "There's got to..."

...If it wasn't for Ruby, Five never would have started this mess. If she hadn't been kidnapped, nobody would have looked for her, and nobody would have been hurt.

Yang's finger twitched slightly, and Ruby looked at it, a glimmer of hope on her face. But after that, she remained motionless. Of course. Yang was hurt too bad to wake up right now. Some involuntary twitch, a reaction to a nightmare or something.

...She couldn't just sit around here and do nothing. It was tearing her apart, seeing Yang like this. She needed to go out there, she needed to do something, she needed-

For a moment, a memory flashed through her. The first time she had ever seen Five, the expression on her face. First surprised, but then intrigued, predatory. She said something about Ruby's eyes, clicked her fingers, and then lunged at her, breaking her Aura down in seconds before casually dragging her away while the people around her did nothing.

Five was strong. Terrifyingly so. Could she really bring herself to face her again? After how easily Five had overpowered her before?

...There had to be something she could do. Maybe another one of Five's followers was walking around and Yang could run into them, maybe one of her rescuers was in a pinch, maybe there was something, anything, she could do, just to feel like she was helping?

 **[X] She should just stay here. She'd already caused enough harm, no need to worry Qrow any more then needed.**  
 **[X] She just needed to swallow her fear and go face Five. A Huntress always faced down terrifying foes, so why should she let this be any different?**  
 **[X] She needed to do something. She didn't care what, she just needed to go out, search the city, see a chance to be helpful and take it.**

 **Now, while I could just keep following Ruby, narratively, it would be unsatisfying if the resolution regarding Five happened off screen. Oh, and it might be kinda important? If anyone asks, it was too important not to record. But from which perspective shall this be recorded?**

 **[X] Taiyang**  
 **[X] Miltia**


	43. Father Sun

**[X] She needed to do something. She didn't care what, she just needed to go out, search the city, see a chance to be helpful and take it.**  
 **[X] Taiyang**

Standing on the rooftop and looking down, the Hunter waited, and watched.

Melanie was walking down the street, her barely conscious sister being carried on her back. Miltia struggled faintly, but wasn't able to struggle free of Melanie's casual grasp.

Taiyang had known that Miltia would be outmatched. She had said she and her sister were roughly equal before Five's enhancements, and the demonstration from Melanie's fight with Yang betrayed a much higher level of strength than Miltia knew to match, but there had been the vague hope that Melanie would go easy on her sister.

It looks like Five's song was even able to overcome familial bonds.

What must Miltia have felt, when her sister was attacking her, violently enough to hurt her that bad? It was hard to tell from the distance, but Taiyang doubted that trail of blood being left behind was from Melanie.

Torchwick better be telling the truth about Ruby being immune to the song. If he was lying, if Ruby was effected in any way...

Taiyang didn't want to finish that thought. The last time he had let himself mope, it had taken the news that Yang and Ruby were almost attacked by Grimm to get him to break out of his stupor. It was a terrible feeling, and people were relying on him too much. Ruby needed him. If Yang had gotten into any trouble, she would need him. Right now, Miltia needed him too. There was too many problems in the present for him to dwell on the past or worry about the future.

He'd have to take this one step at a time.

Seeing a figure down the street approaching Melanie, Taiyang dropped, laying down on the rooftop to conceal himself from any watcher as he looked over the edge of the roof to observe Melanie and the one coming.

Cent and Two were somewhere on the other side of the street, in a building, but Taiyang didn't know where. As long as they kept hidden until Five arrived, they would be fine.

Melanie stopped in the street, as another explosion sound resounded in the distance. Taiyang turned back to see a beam of light being shot upwards, as one of Two's summoned creatures attacked.

He didn't appreciate the thought that those things were so close to him. He'd fought Five's crab monster for a while, just distracting it, and it had been hellish enough. Even if Two was an ally, the Angels were destroying the city as a side-effect of their battle. Being in the vicinity of the fight was probably bad for your health.

The figure down the street ran closer and closer, and their features became more and more visible. Taiyang recognised their features from the video feed of Ruby disappearing. Definitely Five. She was carrying around the boy who had also been around, though he was unconscious.

"Five?" Melanie asked.

"Ah, Melanie." The woman replied, slowing down her approach as she came to. "Good to see you well. I see you won your fight."

"Of course, my lady." Melanie replied. Five drew closer, coming just in front of Melanie, and put a hand on her cheek.

"That's my girl." Five smiled. Then, with a smile, she started singing.

Taiyang covered his ears, just to be safe, and Miltia struggled and tried to pull away. Melanie stumbled forward, and Five caught her as she fell. Even with his ears blocks, Taiyang could vaguely hear a sound, as muffled as it was. As the sound faded, though, he pulled his hands away and kept trying to listen in on the conversation.

"This hasn't been the most successful excursion." Five admitted, as she pulled Melanie up to her feet again. "But at least I have you, and your sister now. I haven't had a chance to enjoy twins before, so perhaps I'll have some fun tonight."

Okay, yeah, putting an end to that right now.

Popping a crystal of fire-aligned dust into his gauntlet, Taiyang vaulted down off the building and pushed off the side of the building, landing in front of Five and Melanie a moment later.

Five blinked at the sudden appearance, then chuckled. She moved the unconscious boy on her back and gave him to Melanie, who struggled under the weight of the now two people she was carrying before she just resorted to dropping him on the ground.

"Be careful with him, Melanie dear." Five requested.

"Are you done?" Taiyang asked. "I'd like to have a discussion with you, regarding my daughter."

Five looked back at Taiyang, looking at his hair before anything else. "Oh, you're Yang's father. Which also makes you Ruby's parent."

"Oh good, we don't need introductions." Taiyang noted. "So, I don't suppose you're willing to surrender?"

Where were Two and Cent? Shouldn't they be getting ready to fight by now, just in case?

"Surrender..." Five mused. "Hm, no. Handcuffs are fun, but I prefer to be the one tying people up. I suppose if you were good enough-"

"Stop that." Taiyang cut in.

"Oh, denying me the pleasure?" Five asked. "Denial play is-"

"This is going nowhere." Taiyang interrupted, an edge to his voice. "Stop playing around. Where is my daughter?"

Five chuckled. "Why should I tell you?"

So much for diplomacy. Pressing a button on his gauntlet, Taiyang raised it into view to allow all present to get a good look at his palm as the crystal popped out of it.

"Reason number one."

The crystal detonated, and the explosion ripped outwards for a moment. The flames that spread towards Taiyang froze against his Aura before being repelled off, hitting Five a second after the first half of the explosion hit her. She and Melanie were forced back, and in the half second they were cowering, Taiyang rushed in, grabbed Miltia, and pulled her away.

"You alright?" He asked the younger girl. With a closer look at her, Taiyang was able to note her injuries. Her leg was bleeding heavily, the back of her dress was torn with a cut underneath it, and her eye was bruised and swollen.

He might not have known Miltia, but seeing a girl so close to his daughters age hurt still didn't feel right.

"...Mel..." She wheezed out, before coughing. Taiyang put her down, resting her against a wall, and turned back to Five and Melanie.

"Don't worry." Taiyang assured Miltia. "I won't hurt her too bad."

Melanie stepped forward, but Five put a hand out to block her.

"Let me." Five interrupted. "I want to have some fun."

Taiyang reached into his belt, and pulled out another two crystal.

This was a trick Raven had taught him, way back when. Both of the crystals had that red shine of fire, but only one of them was explosive through and through. The other was just a thin layer of fire dust, hiding a wind crystal underneath it.

Throwing the fire crystal at Five, Taiyang loaded the second crystal into his gauntlet while Five stepped into the path of the crystal, allowing Melanie to grab the unconscious boy and pulling him away out of the way of the fight. As the explosion faded away, Taiyang ran forward, punching into Five and pressing a button on the palm of his gauntlet. The crystal in his gauntlet detonated, a burst of wind pushing in every direction. Once again, Taiyang's Aura deflected the burst he had created, forcing the wind away from him in time with his fist.

Five, bracing herself for an explosion and instead getting a burst of wind, was too surprised to react to Taiyang's fist, knocking her off balance. He kept up the pressure as much as he could, not able to take time to reload his gauntlets with another special crystal, and he managed to hit her twice more before Five recovered enough to catch his fist.

"Clever boy." She moaned. "But surely you didn't think you could take me alo-"

There was a suddenly melodic shout from the rooftops, and Five pushed Taiyang away while moving back as Two came down. Cent's sword in her hand, Two hit the ground and cratered the ground where she landed.

"Sorry I'm late." Two panted. "Took a wrong turn after we split up, and Cent insisted I take his sword even though I'm better than him unarmed so we missed another turn while talking about it and-"

Melanie leaped in, slicing at Two, and the Intoner caught the bladed heel, slammed her into the ground, and threw her away. She grunted as she hit the ground and rolled, eventually stopping when she ran into Cent.

"Hello." The man in black grinned. "I don't suppose-"

Melanie swiped at his throat, and Cent ducked back to dodge it.

Taiyang turned his attention back to the more important threat just as Five attacked her sister, slamming a fist into her sisters face. Two didn't react, and swung the sword in return. Five blocked it with her arm, gritting his teeth, and Taiyang circled around the battle, as Two pushed the attack.

Most of the advantages were with the blue-haired woman. She had a weapon, and she seemed the stronger of the two. The one thing against her was that she was the more restrained of the two, but turning the tables was easy enough when it was two on one.

Once he was behind Five, Taiyang lunged, grabbing Fives arm, pulling it back to pin to her arm, and activated the crystals in his gauntlets. Ice spread from his fingerprints, freezing her arm to her back. Two crystals worth of ice wasn't anything to laugh at, even if Five was strong enough to break it.

Taiyang would just need to end the fight before she had time.

Five's other arm reached around, for Taiyang's throat, but before she could reach she had to duck Two's blade, and the blonde sister moved her hand up to try and tear the weapon away from the blue-haired ones.

Taiyang grabbed Five's leg and pulled it out from under her, and Two took the opportunity to slam her sister into the ground. Taking the chance while she was down, Taiyang twisted Five's leg to hold her in place. It wasn't a hold impossible to break, but it'd be painful, and likely drain her Aura a bunch if she didn't want to tear a muscle.

Two put a sword at Five's throat. "Stop, Five. Please. You've lost."

"Like hell I-"

Putting the side of her sword on Five's throat, Two pressured.

"I'm sorry." She said, as she cut of Five's circulation. "But you're an Intoner. This won't hurt you. You'll be fine. But... Please, just give up. I don't want to do this.

Five glared upwards, and finally pulled her arm free from Taiyang's ice. Her arm reached for Two's, and Taiyang pulled at her leg. Five screamed in pain, and Two winced visibly.

"Please, Five-" Two tried to ask, but Five tried to reach for her again, causing Taiyang to continue putting pressure on her.

He needed to keep her distracted if he wanted it to end now. This had gone on long enough. If she wasn't going to give up, then she was still an enemy. And Two was saying she was tough anyway, so it should be fine.

Five gasped as she reached for Two one last time, and Taiyang felt her Aura fail as Two pushed in further. A few more moments passed, and with a shuddering whine, Five stopped moving.

Taiyang let go of Five, and put a hand on her back to check her vitals as Two pulled her sword away. There was a heartbeat, and her breathing restarted a moment after Two moved away.

"...It's over." Two said, looking down at her sister.

"Not quiet." Taiyang replied, looking over at where Melanie and Cent were fighting. Cent was on the defensive, dodging her kicks, but was otherwise untouched.

Melanie looked over, and saw Five on the ground, and screamed. She rushed towards Taiyang and Two, but Two stepped forward, caught her leg, and sand.

Melanie's eyes glazed over, and a smile was brought to her lips for a moment, before Two stopped and Melanie shook her head. "You-"

"-Have to stop." Two interrupted. "That's what you want, right? The song? Five can't give it to you. I can. You don't need to fight."

Melanie looked at Two. "I..."

Two sang again, and Melanie fell to her knees.

"It's over, okay?" Two asked. "It's over. Just stop, and I'll give you more. Just let it end."

Melanie looked up at her, torn. "I want..."

"Shhh." Two interrupted, putting a finger on Melanie's lips. "It's over. I'll take care of you. It's fine."

Melanie shook for a moment, but eventually nodded.

"That's a good girl." Two said, her voice stuttering for a moment. "It's over. It's fine."

Taiyang breathed out. "Now we find the others."

Two nodded, then looked over into the distance.

"Phanuel's gone." She noted. "Five and Dito are both down, so that must have cut it off?"

Taiyang had to admit, he hadn't noticed. He'd been too focused on stopping Five that he stopped listening to anything unimportant to the fight.

"Well, it's a good thing we don't have to pay the property damage bill." He tried to joke.

Two didn't respond, too walking over to Five and picking her up.

"Let's go get your daughter, then." Cent spoke up. "Finish up here. We just need to find the airship."

"Did you see where it landed?" Taiyang asked.

Before Cent could answer, there was a shattering, and Neo appeared, looking surprised. Quickly pulling out her scroll, Neo started typing. A moment later, Taiyang pulled out his scroll, to read the message.

 _I missed the fun part? Aw. Can I at least stab Five a few times to make myself feel better?_

"You do realise scrolls have a text to speech feature, right?" Taiyang asked.

 _Where's the fun in that?_

"Fair point." Taiyang conceded. "Now, where's my daughters?"

 _Oh, we found them. Uh, I'll let Roman tell you what happened. I wasn't watching and left before I could see how everyone was so I didn't have to give answers._

* * *

Stepping onto the airship, Miltia on his back and Five's Disciple, Dito, in his arms, Taiyang put the two down as soon as he could and rushed for the medical bay. Neo had said they were there on the way back, and even if she wouldn't say how hurt they were, he had to check.

Bursting in, passing the sliding door as he did so, Taiyang froze when he saw Yang. There were so many machines hooked up to her that even if he couldn't see the wounds past them all, he knew it was bad.

"...What-"

"Hey." Qrow spoke up, and Taiyang turned to him. He was on a bed in the corner, his arm in another machine.

"What happened?" Taiyang demanded.

"I messed up." Qrow admitted. "Got caught. Yang saved my ass when she got here, but that Dito kid beat her too. She's fine, though. She'll make it. Her Aura started up again now long ago, it'll heal the worst of it. It's been long enough that it won't fix everything, but she'll just need a few months to heal up properly and it'll be fine."

Taiyang shook, as he looked at Qrow. "How are you?" He demanded.

Qrow looked down at his arm.

"...I don't think I'll be keeping this." He admitted. "Fucker put a bomb in it and blew it up. Well after the fight, too. He just wanted to show Ruby what happens when he's in a bad mood."

He tried to keep his tone casual, but the last words were spat out as a curse.

Taiyang closed his eyes. Yang was in a terrible state and Qrow was losing an arm, but Ruby wasn't in here, so she had to be fine, right?

"Where's Ruby?" He asked.

Qrow didn't answer.

Taiyang looked up at him again, trying to not be angry.

"Qrow..." He forced out. "Tell me she's fine."

"She was moping." A voice behind Taiyang said, and he turned to face Roman Torchwick in his own bed. "So she decided she needed to help somehow, and went for a walk."

"What?" Taiyang demanded, turning to the door. "She's still out there? Why would you let her leave?"

Qrow didn't answer, and Roman laid back down, so Taiyang swore and stormed towards the door.

"If anything's happened to her..." He muttered under his breath, as he passed by Two carrying everyone to the infirmary.

As he reached the door to the airship and started down, however, he saw movement in the distance. Two distinct figures, one small, and one round.

"Ruby!" Taiyang called, rushing to the scene. He sprinted towards her, reaching her side as fast as he could. As he approached, he confirmed that the man with his daughter was Port, carrying two unconscious teenagers on his back.

Taiyang knelt down and threw his arms around Ruby, hugging her close to him.

"I'm so sorry." He choked out. "I should have found you faster, I shouldn't have let you be taken in the process, I-"

"Breath..." Ruby wheezed, and Taiyang let go of her as he realised how tight he was holding her.

"What are you doing?" He asked. "You've been kidnapped for far too long, and then you run out to help? You don't need to help, you should be resting-"

"Taiyang." Peter Port spoke up, drawing his attention. "Perhaps I shouldn't speak, but your daughter did well, coming to my aid when she did. I admit, I was in a bit of a predicament. There was two great beasts engaging in combat, and they'd managed to force me into a corner. I had to keep shielding my students here, and by the time I got away, I was out of Aura. With the Grimm that were near the site of the battle, I had resigned myself to camping it out and waiting until I recovered to escape, which could have kept me out there for another day."

Taiyang looked at him. "You mean..."

"If your little girl didn't arrive when she did, I could have been stuck out there for a while more." Peter confirmed. "I assume that you wouldn't want to leave your injured in a airship infirmary when you could return to a hospital, so there was a chance I could have been left behind all together."

Ruby smiled, faintly. "You're all out here because of me anyway." She said. "I didn't want anyone else being hurt because of me. Not after Uncle Qrow and Yang..."

She trailed off, her breath hitching and tears pooling in her eyes. Immediately, Taiyang pulled her into a hug, less restraining than before, and whispered reassurances in her ear.

"It's fine, it's fine." He said. "Everthing's alright. We're going home, Yang will be fine, and I won't let anything happen to you ever again."

He'd made that promise a thousand times. He failed it almost every time. He'd lost people and almost lost people so often, that to anyone else, that promise would become meaningless.

But in that moment, the conviction in Taiyang's heart was unbreaking. The promise had been broken a thousand times before. This time, he swore, would be the last.

 **With Five defeated, this particular incident is almost resolved. There's only one more event of importance to record before we record Pyrrha's story, and it shouldn't take long to reach it. But before we do cover it, Yang has to awaken. But who is at her side when she does wake up?**

 **[X] Ruby**  
 **[X] Taiyang**  
 **[X] Qrow**  
 **[X] Two**  
 **[X] Miltia**  
 **[X] Nobody? She's alone when she awakens? Man, that sounds like it'll be depressing. Can't things be a bit happier for a bit?**


	44. Hospital

**[X] Miltia**

There was a beeping sound echoing through the room as Yang regained consciousness. Everything was blurry, and focusing on anything was difficult. The beeping blended together past a certain point, and she stared up at an unfamiliar rooftop.

Where... Was she?

She tried to move her arm up, but wasn't able to feel anything. Her head was all fuzzy. She tried to sit up, but couldn't bring herself to move. Keeping her eyes open was a struggle.

"Ugh..." She groaned, as she opened her eyes. To her left, there was a sudden, surprised movement. Yang tried to move her head across, but moving was hard.

"...Who..." She tried to wheeze out, before trailing off.

"...Hey." Miltia's voice responded.

Yang focused some more, moving her hand to clench her fist and drive nails into her palm to wake herself up some more. She barely felt anything.

"Can't feel..." Yang muttered, as she twisted her head to turn to Miltia.

"They've probably mixed in some painkillers with the blood they're pumping into you." Miltia noted.

"...Barely feel." Yang noted, shaking her head a bit to think harder. "Need to... Clear head."

"Try to sit still." Miltia advised. "I don't know how badly hurt you are. You could start making things worse again if you moved about."

"...How bad was-" She paused, suddenly remembering being stabbed in the stomach. "...Right. Dito."

Remembering things were hard. She was stabbed. That spear, Dito's spear, someone else had used it at some point? It'd been pointed at Dito, by-

"Ruby!" Yang suddenly shouted, struggling upwards. Something stopped her from moving anything below her head, and she looked down to see some sort of machine pinning down her torso.

"That's some sort of machine to repair your-"

"Where's Ruby?" Yang interrupted, cutting Miltia off from the pointless stuff. "Where's my sister? Is she-"

"She's alright." Miltia assured her. "She didn't leave your side for the first three days, and spent more time here than not in the next few as well. I'll expect she'll be here any moment now."

"Where is she?" Yang insisted.

"She should be in the building." Miltia continued. "Your uncle was hurt bad too, needed a surgery of some sort, and he's here until everyone's sure there's no complications. She's likely going to be coming right here as soon as she's done talking with him."

Yang relaxed, lying back down and ceasing her struggle. "Is she alright?"

"She's not hurt, if that's what you mean." Miltia explained. "I don't know enough about her to see if she's stable after the time spent in Five's captivity, but she's doing better then my sister, at least."

Yang took a moment to breath. She couldn't get any more information out of Miltia. She wouldn't have information.

"...How is your sister?" Yang asked. "Is she alright?"

Miltia paused for a moment.

"She's..."

Her breath shuddered, as she thought about it for a moment.

"...I can't stand it." She said. "She's just..."

"Are you alright?" Yang asked, trying to move for a moment before again running into the issue of the machine strapped around her torso.

"I don't want to see her like that." Miltia admitted. "She'll be fine one moment, but once you start talking about Five or Two or their songs she just gets twitchy and starts... She's not supposed to be like that."

Yang felt a pang of pity in her heart. "...You sound like you could use a hug."

"No thanks." Miltia sighed. "I'll be fine. It's just... Can I stay and talk for a while, at least?"

"Sure, go ahead." Yang said. She sounded like she needed a distraction.

Miltia sat down on a nearby chair and looked down.

"Melanie was always the stronger one." Miltia admitted. "She's not supposed to be... You know. Like that. She's meant to be the reliable one."

"The sister you admire?" Yang asked.

"Yeah." Miltia continued. "Like that. She's always the... She's confident. Assertive. People would roll right over me if I didn't have her sticking up with me sometimes. And now she's..."

"That sucks." Yang nodded, as Miltia trailed off. "I... I'll be honest, I don't know what I'd do in your shoes, if Ruby was all messed up."

"It sucks." Miltia muttered. "Everything sucks. My sister's in a terrible state and I can't do anything, I'm so desperate to avoid looking at her that I'll pop in and look at a girl in a coma or something to just be doing anything else, and..."

"You're strong." Yang cut in. "You're holding together well enough. Do you have anyone else you can talk to about it, or have you been handling this by yourself?"

"...There's Junior, kinda." Miltia went on. "But he's busy a lot, and doesn't really know what to say anyway."

"Well, I think I might have a bunch of free time in the future." Yang noted, looking at the machine over her torso. "If you need someone to talk to, just give me a call.

Miltia was silent for a moment.

"...Sorry." Miltia said, after a moment. "You've been out for a week and we talk about my problems. You probably would've preferred to wake up to a loved one, wouldn't you?"

"That doesn't matter." Yang counted. "If you need someone to talk to-"

A door opened, and both people looked over to it, as a girl in a red hood walked in. After a moment, she looked over at Yang on the bed, and her eyes went wide.

"Yang!" She shouted, rushing forward with what was probably Semblance-induced speed to rush to her side, and give her a hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" She exclaimed, pulling Yang's head up to give it a hug. "I was so worried, I thought you were..."

Her breath hitched, and Yang felt a tear hit her face as Ruby looked down at her.

"It's okay." Yang interrupted, reaching up to hug Ruby. "It's okay. I'm okay. You're okay everyone's okay."

Ruby shook for a moment, and tried to smile through some tears.

"I missed you." Ruby said softly. "I..."

"It's okay." Yang continued. "I'm not going to let anything happen. I won't let anyone hurt you again."

"I-It's not me, though..." Ruby sniffed. "You've been unconscious for a week and nobody will tell me how bad you're hurt, a-and Qrow didn't tell me until yesterday that they had to remove his arm because of what Dito did and all the people who heard Five's songs keep acting weird if Two doesn't visit them often enough and Two's always looking sad, she tried to talk to Five but couldn't get anything out of her, and..."

She trailed off, and Yang rubbed her sisters back.

"It's okay." She said. "It's over. Five can't hurt you anymore."

"...Why did she kidnap me in the first place?" Ruby asked. "She said something about my eyes, and... Two said she looked sad for a moment when she asked Five, but..."

"Don't worry about it." Yang continued.

They stayed silent for a moment, before Miltia cleared her throat in the corner.

"Should I just leave?" She asked.

Ruby looked up at Miltia. "Uh, sorry, I-"

"No, it's fine." Miltia interrupted. "You and your sister have been reunited at last. You two can be happy now. Enjoy it."

She stood up to leave, but Ruby let go of Yang and caught her arm as she turned to leave.

"Hey, sorry, where you talking to Yang?"

"Don't mind me." Miltia dismissed. "You've got your happy ending. Don't worry about me."

"You helped." Ruby interrupted. "Even if you were just trying to find your sister, you still helped when you came with Yang. I... Thank you. And I'm sorry. If you need me to help with anything-"

"Forget it." Miltia replied, pulling herself away from Ruby and continuing to leave. "I... Just forget about me."

She left, and Ruby and Yang watched her walk away.

"...I should talk to her." Yang groaned.

There was another set of footsteps outside, and they looked back and watched the door, as Taiyang walked in.

"Rub-"

He paused when he saw Yang, and smiled.

"Yang! You're awake?"

"I'm sleeptalking." Yang replied. Taiyang blinked, chuckled a bit.

"Thank goodness. You're making terrible jokes, you're fine."

"I thought I'd start with jokes around your level of humour." Yang replied, with a grin.

"I'm in a hospital." Ruby pointed out. "If I stab my ears out with a fork, there won't be any long-term consequences which I don't want."

Yang smiled. "I missed this."

Taiyang smiled for a moment longer, before his face fell and he walked up besides Yang.

"So how bad am I hurt anyway?" She asked.

"You probably can't tell, because of all the painkillers and all." He said. "But the doctors were saying that you shouldn't do any strenuous activity. So if this was all your plan to get out of school for another month-"

"Are you kidding?" Yang asked. "I've got the lamest dad in the world, I'm just going to get a month of theoretical stuff without the fun punchy bit."

"What a shame." Taiyang noted.

"But seriously." Yang asked again. "How bad?"

"...You might not want to eat solids for a while." He admitted. "Doctor's recommendation. You need to be careful what you eat, or you'll put too much pressure on your stomach and tear it open. Don't get hit around there, either. Aura should let you walk around without risking anything, but don't let that get too low. And things'll likely hurt a lot if you're not on painkillers, but you'll probably only be allowed them for a bit longer."

"...Ah." Yang winced. "So, how bad _was_ I? Do I want to know?"

"Probably not, no." Taiyang noted.

Ruby's breath hitched again at that comment.

"...I'm sorry, Ruby." Yang said. "I don't want to worry you-"

"It's not your fault." She said. "It's-"

She cut herself off, looking up at Taiyang.

"...It's fine." She finished.

That's not what she was going to say. That's not even remotely what she was going to say.

She really needed to talk to Ruby sometime. But for now, she just wanted to focus on being happy.

"So..." Ruby started again, looking to change the topic. "How was your trip outside Vale, Yang?"

The girl on the bed blinked.

"...I'd forgotten about it, to be honest." She admitted. "A lot happened. I went to a fight club, I sneaked out and talked with criminals..."

"You're grounded forever." Taiyang noted.

"You're just jealous that your childhood wasn't this interesting." Yang grinned. "Ta-I'm thinking the most exciting thing you'd ever done in your youth is hold a girls hand?"

"Such a delinquent." Taiyang sighed. "I don't know where I went wrong with her. Ruby, please, I'm Long-ing for someone in this family to behave."

"Hey, don't try and make me Yang-ry."

Ruby groaned, putting her head in her hands. "Why me?"

"You know you missed this." Yang said with a smile.

"...Yeah." Ruby confirmed. "I... I missed you. Both of you."

She looked up from her hands, tears falling from her eyes again. "I hadn't seen you since you left... T-Then the first time I see you again is you almost dying a-and..."

Taiyang knelt down to give his younger daughter a hug, and after a moment, Yang tried talking.

"Hey." Yang called up. "I upgraded Ember Celica a bit while looking for you."

Ruby looked over at her. "What?"

"Made a few adjustments." She said. "Got another weapon to compare with while out on my trip, used it as a base for a few touch ups. You wanna have a look at it, see if you could figure it out?"

Ruby's eyes lit up. "Yeah. Can I-"

"It's all yours." Yang said. "I bet you'd like a chance to make it better."

Ruby nodded.

"Speaking of which." Yang continued. "Any new ideas on that weapon idea of yours?"

"I've reaffirmed that a weapon is better with more range then my fists." Ruby noted.

"That's what shooting is for." Yang pointed out.

"Only if you lack creativity." Ruby replied with a smile. "And besides, maybe you can turn getting hurt into a good thing, but in my case, more range is especially important, because with enough range, I can control the flow of battle, using my speed to stay at an optimal range. On top of that, gauntlet weapons rely almost entirely on the strength of the user, whereas a bigger weapon in my hands would have more mass and compensate for my lack of physical strength..."

She continued on for some time, and for a while, the father and two daughters were happy.

 **Yang will do a lot of things in the next few days, as she leaves hospital, talks with people, and recovers. but at some point, she will pay a visit to the holding cells to have a conversation with a certain Intoner. Why?**

 **[X] She wanted answers regarding how Ruby was kidnapped. There was a good deal of aggression too, she wanted to yell at someone.**  
 **[X] Two called Yang and asked for a favour. She hadn't been able to get answers out of Five, and thought some help might do the trick.**  
 **[X] Qrow was interrogating her as part of the standard legal procedure, and he invited Yang and Ruby along to observe this part of the job**


	45. One

**[X] Two called Yang and asked for a favour. She hadn't been able to get answers out of Five, and thought some help might do the trick.**

Sitting in the waiting area, Yang shuffled slightly in her seat.

Her father had been reluctant to let her come, but he knew the people in charge of the cells, so she was being watched, at least. Two herself was on her way, though she was kind of late.

Next to Yang's seat, next to her armrest, was a cane. A walking stick, though not one she really needed. It was a precaution more than anything, just in case one of the wounds hadn't healed properly. If she twisted her leg wrong and reopened a wound. It wasn't really required, but it was better to have it just in case. Besides, it stopped Ruby from worrying, and she'd been through enough already.

Two had been having a bad time, too. It'd been three days since Yang had woken up, and Two had called her yesterday to ask her to help her with this. Whatever Five's deal is, nobody had gotten answers, and Two had tried every second day to try and get some answers out of her sister.

Yang didn't know if her presence would make any difference, but she was willing to try it. She would have wanted to visit Five eventually anyway, since nobody had any real answers yet. Yang wanted answers. Her sister had been taken and nobody knew why, even still. That wasn't good enough. Yang didn't want any more unanswered questions in her life.

She sighed, looking up at the roof, listening to the sound of a ticking clock nearby.

She was glad Ruby was okay, at least. Or, well, as good as she could be. She was doing her best. It was amazing, how strong she was being about the whole incident. She was jumpy at times, distracted at others, and even if she tried to hide it, it was obvious at times that she wasn't coping too well. She'd try to clean up afterwards, but she sometimes looked like she had been crying after she'd been left alone for a bit.

Not that she was alone often. She didn't seem to want to go too far from people, and nobody seemed to want to go too far from her. Uncle Qrow had dropped by more often than usual to check on her. Understandable, given how Ruby had been taken when she was out of his sight for like five minutes. Perfectly understandable, that he'd get worried about what was going on when he wasn't watching.

There were so many people who were blaming themselves over the incident. Yang was sure she could have stopped it if she was there, Qrow was convinced if they had kept closer watch he could have prevented it, Ruby wouldn't stop blaming herself...

Yang's father was the only person who hadn't blatantly tried to accept blame, but that doesn't mean he wasn't blaming himself. Yang remembered how he had shut down after her mother disappeared, and when...

Well, he had a history. A person doesn't just magically stop being depressed like that, all that really would have changed is that Taiyang would have tried to ignore it in order to try and make people think he was alright.

...Kinda like how Ruby was obviously hiding how hard she was taking things. And how Yang was trying to not let people know how bad off she was.

She just...

Dito had beaten her down so easily. She'd been hurt so bad, and he'd played with her. Held Ruby hostage and used it to make her sit there and take it. He'd even gone and fucking cut her hair, despite how completely pointless it was, just to drive in how much control he'd had.

It was infuriating. She loved her hair. She had great hair. It was long, beautiful. One of her best qualities. What was the fucking point in tearing it off, apart from being an asshole?

Yang was glad that Dito had taken a few heavy hits. Kinda pissed off that he had recovered before Yang had, but he was locked in a cell kept away from everyone so it was blatantly clear who the real winner was here.

The door opened, and Two walked in, wearing a blue tuxedo of some kind while holding a box of chocolates.

"Hi, Yang." She said, waving her entire arm. "Sorry I'm late. Cent wanted me to look professional, but I needed to wash this outfit and let it dry and then I forgot where I left it and... Well, I'm here now."

"No problem." Yang replied. "Let's go meet your sister, then."

Two nodded, putting the box of chocolates through a window in the wall and passing it through to the guard on the other side. He opened the box, nodded at Two and Yang, and pressed a button to open a door.

The steel door opened slowly with a beeping sound, and the two walked through.

"I'm feeling a bit under-dressed." Yang noted, looking at the suit Two was wearing.

Two frowned, looking at Yang's clothes.

"As in, I'm wearing casual things, while you're looking all fancy." Yang explained. "It's a figure of speech."

"Ooh." Two nodded. "Sorry, I'm not the best with stuff like that. Not the sharpest brick in the shed."

Yang looked at her for a moment.

"I realised I made a mistake in there somewhere but I'm not sure where so lets just move on."

Yang nodded, and they continued through another set of steel doors that opened up as the ones behind them closed. On the other side, the guard passed through the box of chocolates.

"Thank you!" Two chirped. "Hey, do you want one?"

The guard shook his head. "Sorry. Not allowed to eat on the job. I'm told you're trustworthy, but it's regulation. In case someone tried spiking someone to take me out while I'm on patrol."

"Ah." Two nodded. "I see. Maybe keep one for when you go home, then?"

The guard paused, then shrugged. "Eh, why not. Just leave it on that side of the window so anyone watching video footage knows I'm not breaking the rules."

Two nodded, putting a chocolate on the outside of the window, pointing it out while smiling towards a camera in the corner, emphasising it heavily. Then she closed the box of chocolates, tied a ribbon around it, and turned back towards the other side of the room.

"Meeting Room Three, right?" Two asked. The guard nodded.

"Okay. Let's go, Yang." Two said, walking through said door. Yang entered a moment later.

There was an empty room, with a glass wall halfway through. There was a table attached to the glass, with a small space for passing things back and forth. Sitting on the over side was Five, wearing an orange outfit but having the top few buttons undone for obvious reasons.

"Ah, Two." Five moaned. "It's so good to see you. Don't you think you're overdressed? Is this your way of punishing me?"

...Is she implying-

No, no, don't think about it, she's trying to cause a distraction probably.

Hopefully.

"Cut the crap." Yang spoke up.

"And you brought a guest!" Five continued. "Oh, did something happen to your hair? I liked it better when it was longe-"

Yang growled, as she glared at Five. "Enough of that."

"Do you want something nice?" Two asked, passing through the box of chocolates. Five ignored them.

"Are you the bad cop?" Five asked. "I think you might need to punish me to get some answers. I've been _such_ a bad girl-"

"The hell is wrong with you?" Yang asked. "This isn't some weird creepy thing. I want some answers."

"And what do _I_ get out of it?"

"Technically speaking." Yang began. "I'm an assistant Huntress who participated in arresting you. You know what that means? If I give a recommendation as to your sentencing, bail, whatever, people listen. So if I said you've failed to co-operate and are making things difficult, I can suggest they give you a maximum sentence and most likely keep you isolated."

"Oh, please." Five chuckled. "They'd at least-"

"You have addictive songs that essentially turns into mind control." Yang continued. "I can _totally_ make the case that you're too risky and need to be locked away somewhere deep, far away from everyone else."

Five's smile faltered for a moment, then reappeared. "Oh, please, don't tease me, I might get all-"

Yang punched the glass, shaking it but not breaking it. It was made of stronger stuff then that.

"Don't fucking toy with me!" Yang snapped. " _Talk_. You took my sister. _Why_?"

Five smiled. "Oh, isn't it obvious? She's so cute-"

"Five." Two spoke softly. Sadly. "Please."

The blonde sister looked at the blue one, and said nothing.

"Everyone's so upset." Two continued. "People want to know things, and if people are angry at you, things could be worse and... Please, I just want to make everyone happy."

"Of course you do." Five repeated. "You're too busy taking what you know to try and make things right, you miss things that are obvious is you have to put the slightest thought into it."

Two's face fell. "Five... All you've told people is that Ruby's cute and had cute eyes, why-"

"Why does there have to be more to it?" Five asked.

"Five..." Two questioned quietly.

There was a knock on the door behind them, and Yang turned back to it.

Who was there? Some guard? This had to be important, then.

"Come in." Yang asked.

The door opened, and a woman in white walked in. Five gasped, and when Two looked around as she did so, going still.

"There you are." The woman said, looking up over at the two Intoners, her white hair parting to reveal the mark on her forehead.

I

"One!" Two called, jumping up and pulling the woman into a hug. "You're here! But-"

One hugged her back, and interrupted her words. "I've been looking for you. Both of you. I heard about what happened."

"One..." Five muttered under her breath. "I..."

One disentangled herself from Two for a moment, looking over at her sister past the glass.

"Five." She said. "I'm sorry. I should have found you sooner. I promised that you'd always be able to enjoy life, and then we lost enough other. I should have been there for you."

"I-"

"Don't speak." One interrupted. "I should have been there, but I'm disappointed it came to this. I'm going to make things right, but I need you to just do what I say."

"Um." Yang stepped forward. "Excuse me?"

"I've talked with your government." One continued. "And paid her bail. I'm taking my sister home, and will deal with things in Atlas."

"You think you can-"

"I understand." One interrupted. "I'll talk with you in a moment. Five, go back to your cell. People will be along shortly. They'll take you to my airship soon."

Five looks at her, suprised.

"We'll talk more there." One continued. "Go, now."

Five was slow to stand, but did so, walking off after a moment.

"Two." One continued. "Winter has told me that you're looking after an orphanage?"

"You know Winter?" Two asked.

One nodded. "I've been organising a place for them in Atlas. It'll be a while, and I'll understand if you want to stay here to watch them until then. But there's place for you."

Two blubbered for a moment, tears falling from her eyes out of the sheer joy of it. One pulled her into another hug. "I've missed you."

"I- You-"

"I've already found Three and Four." One continued. "It's just you, Five and Zero to go."

Two nodded in the hug, and didn't move away.

The small white-haired woman looked back at Yang.

"Miss Xiao Long?" One asked. "Is it okay if I call you Yang?"

"...Yes?" Yang replied. "What's going on-"

"I apologise for what's happened." One continued. "Rest assured, I intend to pay you back. I have... Friends, lets say, in Atlas. I've already gotten the full story. There's people already working on making a cybernetic replacement arm for your uncle, and I promise, I'll get Five's side of the story out of her."

"Um." She objected. "What's just happened? Who are you? What-"

One held up a finger to interrupt her, and looked up to her taller sister.

"Two." She began. "Can you give me a minute? We can catch up in private in a moment."

Two blinked, then nodded. "O-Of course, One! I'll just step out..."

The blue Intoner stepped out, and left. Now with her full attention on Yang, One continued.

"There's a lot to explain." One stated. "But I'll keep it simple, for now. Please don't hold Five's actions against her-"

"She kidnapped my sister!" Yang shouted, suddenly feeling angry.

"I understand." One assured her. "I really do. But I need my sister, Yang. The Intoners need to reunite."

"Why?" Yang asked. "I've heard a lot about you Intoners, but why does that mean Five just gets to-"

"Haven't you thought it strange?" Five asked. "That Two and Five both had the power over song?"

Yang paused. "...You mean their Semblance?"

One shook her head. "The Intoner's magic and your Semblances are completely different. And while there are families who have been bred so that they always inherit certain abilities, they are usually listed and known, aren't they?"

"What are you saying?" Yang asked.

"I need my sisters." One explained. "Even ignoring how they are my sisters... Well, you didn't see it, but the potential in their song nearly levelled half of Mountain Glenn during a conflict between two of them, when they weren't trying to kill each other. With all of us together, we can start making a difference on this world."

"What are you talking about?" Yang asked.

"Watch the news over the next few months." One advised her." We'll be making splashes in Atlas soon. I won't be able to find Zero if she doesn't want to be found, so I'll have to begin without her to draw her attention..."

Yang waited, as One trailed off, before the woman in white refocused.

"The point is, I'm sorry about what Five has done to your family." One continued. "I will make this up to you, don't fear. And Two seems close to you, so I am sure we will meet again."

"Are you just leaving?" Yang asked.

"Do we have anything else to talk about?" One asked.

Yang was silent.

"Exactly." One finished. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk with my sister."

And so the white-haired Intoner left the room, leaving Yang alone with her thoughts.

* * *

"And then Yang does nothing for a few months." The girl writing the report said with a sigh. "I mean, her perspective will be needed to see how she, Ruby, and those around them develop, but... When do they become relevant again, sir?"

The old man took a sip of his drink. "We'll get to it in time. For now, though, I do believe its time we looked into what Miss Nikos is doing."

The girl's eyes lit up. "Oh, yes! I've been looking forward to this, I've been studying the tournament in my spare time-"

"We don't have time to cover the entire tournament."

The girl's face fell. '...Huh? But how Miss Nikos beat the sunlight guy was-"

"Impressive, yes." The old man noted. "Certainly, the control over the battlefield she displayed there was impressive. But the relevant portions of the tournament are the aftermath of the final battle."

"...Well, I'm writing _that_ one." The girl insisted. "Or some of it, at least. I thought it was a cool fight. And besides, I'm pretty sure Pyrrha's foe there turned out to be important in the aftermath as well."

The old man nodded. "Very will, do as you wish."

Turning back to her page, the young woman got out a new pen and started writing.

 **We will now begin Pyrrha Gaiden: Toy Soldiers Playing War. Our dear Tournament Champion is in her hardest fight yet, in the final round. At which point does this segment begin?**

 **[X] At the start of the fight, so I can write the whole thing.**  
 **[X] Halfway through, so that we can get to the aftermath quickly.**


	46. Born to Win

**[X] At the start of the fight, so I can write the whole thing.**

Spear in hand, Pyrrha waited for the gate to fall.

The crowd outside the area was excited, waiting for this. Of course they where. They were always excited, for one of Pyrrha's fights. Her opponent this time was another popular fighter.

She'd never gotten a good look at her opponent, unfortunately. She always wore armour into the fight. Heavier stuff then what Pyrrha relied on. Though, in her case, the armour was more of a way of making a marketable outfit. While her opponent's armour certainly was marketable, it was also much heavier than Pyrrha's.

Not that it slowed her down in any way. Whatever her opponent's Semblance was, she had been using it more and more every round. She was slow the first round, but only the first. Since then, her every action was faster, her every move stronger, that red glow left in her wake glowing brighter each round.

There was something going on with that. Pyrrha couldn't rely on what she had seen in the last few rounds to assume she had a handle of her opponents abilities.

Especially when you take into account how powerful her family had been shown to be. She had fought her next opponents brother in the last round, and his Semblance had been...

Well, in his case, his Semblance had been easy to bypass. He needed the light of the sun to replenish his immense Aura, but kicking up enough dust to obscure the arena had put a stop to that. Not that the battle was easy. It would be a foolish assumption, thinking that someone with a situational Semblance would rely solely on it.

But he had at least announced his Semblance to every foe he fought, out of some form of honour. Pyrrha's next opponent didn't agree with that concept. Maybe it was situational like her brother. Maybe it was something completely unrelated.

Even if this was Pyrrha's fourth tournament, even if she'd already won the Mistral Tournament three years in a row, it wouldn't do to underestimate anything at any point. She wouldn't want to ruin her perfect record because she got careless. It'd been difficult enough, earning her current reputation. If she threw it all away because she wasn't cautious enough...

The crowd outside quieted down, and an announcer started speaking. Shifting her spear to sword throne and putting it at her side, Pyrrha straightened her back and waited for the door to open.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!" Declared the fast-talking announcer. "This is your host, Johnny Flamewhip, bringing it to you live from the Mistral Regional Tournament! And what a show we have for you this year, ladies and gentlemen. Nobody can deny that this year has been one of the most intense in recent memories. But finally, our two strongest competitors have stepped into the ring."

"For our first competitor, we have a three times champion of this very tournament. The invincible girl, who hasn't been touched once in all her years as fighting! The one, the only, Pyrrha Nikos!"

The crowd _screamed_ , and Pyrrha could hear her name being chanted outside her small room. The gate before her rose, and Pyrrha stepped out.

She had been informed she needs to keep a good image about herself, on the battlefield, in order to maintain her reputation. She was allowed to give the crowd a small wave as she went in, but for the most part, she had to maintain the image of an invincible warrior, focused on the fight and nothing else.

Walking a great distance to the centre of the arena, Pyrrha took a moment to observe the arena.

It was a modular thing, with parts of the arena that could be exchanged back and forth for different environments, but in this final round, it was simply a level dirt area. Nothing to hide behind, nothing to catch Pyrrha or her opponent off guard. Just one girl fighting the other. Nothing more to it.

"With our second competitor, we have some of the fiercest competition this tournament has ever seen! We all overlooked her in that first round, we all let her brother overshadow her, and now here she is, having clawed her way to the finals in spite of the initial poor showing."

The gate opposite Pyrrha opened, and the girl inside stepped out, clad in silver armour marked with red.

"She's mean, brutal, and willing to fight tooth and nail for her victory-"

The girl started walking out, her face covered by her helmet and her footsteps loud. She looked down at Pyrrha, silver sword drawn and raised to the side, a sinister red mist being left in her wake.

That was new. Usually, her Aura's little trick with the red light didn't start until the fight did.

"-Mordred Gwynarian!"

Pyrrha drew her sword and shield, holding them close to her as she stared off against her opponent.

"There can only be one winner, folks. Gwynarian has only gotten more impressive with every fight, and Nikos has been skilled enough to win three tournaments in the past without a demonstration of her Semblance. Will this change anything? Who will win? Win or lose by the sword, the power in their hands will decide..."

Pyrrha looked at her foe, and her foe looked back.

"Ready?"

She calmed her breathing, looking over the reach of Mordred's sword. It was fairly long, at least one hundred and thirty centimetres in blade. Long reach.

"Let's go!"

Mordred charged at Pyrrha, slower than she was in the last round of the tournament, and Pyrrha blocked with her shield. A moment later, the force bearing down on her shield doubled as red light flew off of it, while Pyrrha closed her eyes and focused her Semblance.

Reaching out with her polarity manipulation, Pyrrha tried to magnetically pull at Mordred's sword, forcing it away from her and lessening the force so she can deflect the constantly downward pushing, intensifying force of the sword.

Nothing happened.

Pyrrha opened her eyes, picked up her sword, and stabbed upwards at Mordred's armour. Her concentration on her shield wavered, and Mordred batted it aside, blocking her sword with her armoured forearm, and reached for Pyrrha.

The red-haired girl leaped back, avoiding the attack, twirling her sword as it turned into the javelin version. She watched Mordred approach, still at a slower base, and Pyrrha jabbed out at her. The armour seemed to be well designed to keep Mordred's Aura reinforced, making her stronger, but was heavy enough that without her Semblance it'd slow her down. The streaks of red light left in her wake made it obvious her Semblance was in play, at least.

But why wasn't Pyrrha able to effect her sword?

As her spear struck at Mordred's armour and dented her Aura slightly, Pyrrha circled around, drawing her spear across Mordred's armour as she did so. Mordred twisted her sword, and Pyrrha ducked under it, again trying to push up at the sword to no effect.

Out of curiosity, Pyrrha went on the offensive, pressing up close to the girl, slamming her while spinning her spear around, shifting it to sword form in the process, and firing the rifle aspect mid-transformation to put more power behind the blow. As her sword struck Mordred's gleaming silver armour, Pyrrha pushed back with her Semblance again, trying to get any effect.

Nothing. Her Semblance wasn't having any effect. Why? Mordred clearly didn't have a nullification-type Semblance, so there had to be some reason Pyrrha's Semblance wasn't working on Mordred's armour or sword.

...Her silver sword.

Silver. A metal that was _non-magnetic_.

"What's the matter?" Mordred asked. "You're starting slow on me, Nikos? Trying to figure me out?"

"You got me." Pyrrha replied.

"Stop being a coward about it." The armoured girl demanded, her voice muffled by the silver on her head. "You've never been hit before? Don't care. Come at me with all you got, or I'll tear you down before you can find out what I can do."

Pyrrha ducked under another sword swing, then dodged to the side as Mordred suddenly kicked at her, her leg moving upwards in an unnatural movement that caused Mordred to start flipping despite going right into it from a standing position. Her speed was faster than before, more in line with what she had been doing recently.

"You're holding back too." Pyrrha noted. "You expect me to believe you've built up more and more every round, but then backslide in the final?"

Mordred's fist came flying, and Pyrrha tilted her head, allowing it to just barely miss her. She let go of her weapon and shield for a moment, grabbed Mordred's arm, and threw her opponent over her shoulder and into the ground before she could react. Just before she hit her opponent into the ground, Mordred let loose a red light that quickly formed into a bolt of red lightning shooting outwards, into Pyrrha's hand.

The red-haired champion let out a cry, as her Aura took a hit, and Mordred ripped free from her grasp and slid into the distance.

Quickly catching her weapons out of the air before they hit the ground, Pyrrha looked back at Mordred, who ripped off her helmet just to show her bloodthirsty grin.

"So much for the invincible girl." She declared. "So, looks like the myth around you can be proven false. Now let me tear it apart and destroy the legend."

Holding her sword in both hands now, Mordred Gwynarian let red energy gather around her, red bolts of energy flowing up and down her sword while she ignored the sweat on her brow. Pyrrha took a step back, shifting her spear into rifle form, and threw her shield. Mordred raised one hand without her sword and caught the shield in her palm, but the girl with red hair dashed forward, grabbing the hand holding her shield and pulling it forward, pulling at her shield at the same time to pull Mordred off balance and knee her upwards.

Striking the armour around Mordred's stomach, Pyrrha didn't deal much damage to her opponent, and then backed off to avoid getting any more hurt by the energy cackling around Mordred.

It was unfortunate, that she'd been hurt. Her Aura had taken a decently heavy hit. Not a thing she was used to. The arena was designed so nobody on the inside could hear what was happening on the outside, so she couldn't hear what the audience reactions were, but she could guess that people were talking about the invincible girl getting hurt. The scanners would read her Aura dropping. Her reputation was lessened. She-

-Couldn't think about it now. She'd deal with it later. She wouldn't be one of those fighters who caved as soon as they got surprised. She couldn't be invincible forever.

But the question was, how was she going to beat Mordred?

Her weapon in rifle form, Pyrrha opened fire, shooting at Mordred. Her bullets were doing barely anything, as Pyrrha ran around Mordred in a circle. They just bounced off her armour without doing anything to her Aura. If she hit Mordred's now exposed head, maybe it could do something, but Mordred was actually bothering to deflect those bullets.

She had to get that armour off, somehow. There was an opening at the neck, she had to pry it open to rip off the torso armour, give herself more of a target. If she-

In a burst of speed far faster than anything Mordred had displayed at that point, Pyrrha's opponent was in her face, slamming a fist into it. Pyrrha barely dodged, and this time wasn't able to stop Mordred grabbing her face, before throwing her into the distance into a wall. The champion braced herself, hitting the ground just before the wall and regained her footing, and looked up just in time to see the sword spinning in the air in front of her.

Raising her shield and forcing it out with a sudden amount of force with her Semblance, Pyrrha slammed her shield into the sword, bouncing it away. The sword flew into the air, spinning around and landing to the side of the warrior, and Mordred rushed towards her in a sudden burst of speed.

Pyrrha shifted her rifle into a spear, running to meet Mordred's charge, stabbing forward while firing the barrel at the back of the spear to move it forward with even more force. She approached Mordred, and a second before she came into reach of her foe, she slammed the javelin into the ground, vaulting upwards above Mordred as she charged, and quickly raised and slammed back down her spear again, right down Mordred's back, in the gap between her armour and whatever padding clothes she had underneath it.

As she slammed into the ground behind Mordred, twisting her spear around under the armour, Pyrrha allowed her weapon to transform, increasing the pressure on the back of the armour until eventually it started cracking despite the Aura reinforcing it.

In a situation like this, metal reinforced with Aura against metal reinforced by Aura, Pyrrha would usually be risking her weapon with a manoeuvre like this. But silver was a soft metal. It needed more Aura to strengthen. It wasn't a commonly used metal in armour and weapon for that reason. Perhaps Mordred had her reasons for using it- There was no way she knew about Pyrrha's Semblance, so it was probably a personal matter- But it meant that in a situation like this, the Pyrrha was in the advantage.

She ripped back and tore through the protective layer of plated armour, ignoring the red electricity flowing through her and ripping the back armour away. It pried at the joints, the natural connections falling away, as the metal is torn through, and as her weapon finished transforming, Pyrrha pried off the back of Mordred's armour, leaving a gaping weak point in her back.

Dashing away before Mordred could retaliate, Pyrrha dashed away, firing her rifle behind her to hit Mordred's exposed back. The girl cried out, then dodged out of the way before she could get hurt further.

"Clever girl." Mordred grinned. "Look at that. I finally hit you, and you start pulling out the good shit with that. Keep it up!"

The red energy around Mordred intensified, growing brighter, the red lightning arcing further and further away from her as she picked her sword up.

"Show me everything you got!" Mordred declared. "I'll face it all, tear you down, and show you just how strong I really am!"

And then she _moved_ , a red jet of light being left in the trail of the burst of speed so fast that by the time Pyrrha realised she was moving she was halfway between the two of them. The red-haired girl lifted her shield to block, just as Mordred struck, and stabbed outward with her spear in the process, hitting Mordred's side as she dashed around Pyrrha. The champion stabbed her spear downwards again, vaulting upwards, and dodging into the air to avoid the counterattack.

Mordred paused for a moment as Pyrrha landed, panting heavily. "Why are you still running?"

Looking at her foe and preparing for another attack, Pyrrha planned out her next move.

 **[X] She needed more areas to attack. She needed to pry away more of Mordred's armour, then she could just fight head-on while still doing good.**  
 **[X] She had an opening. She just needed to bait it out, abuse it, deal as much damage as she could. A few good hits should finish this.**


	47. Falling Short

**[X] She needed more areas to attack. She needed to pry away more of Mordred's armour, then she could just fight head-on while still doing good.**

Staring off at her opponent, Pyrrha waited for Mordred to make the first move.

Her opponent had the speed advantage, right now. At least in bursts. She had taken a moment to catch her breath after using that much speed, so it wasn't a constant enhancement, like some Semblances which increased speed.

She took too long to react to it while plotting this, but if she waited until Mordred did that again, she would just need to be close to take advantage of that moment of weakness.

Mordred grinned as she held her sword in front of her, and she started slowly walking towards Pyrrha, confident. Excited. Trying to bait an attack.

"I want to see what you're made of, Nikos." She said with a growl. "I want to see you going all out. I want to show the world everything you have. That way-"

She ran, slower than her full speed but fast enough to force Pyrrha to raise her shield and deflect an overhead sword swing immediately.

"-When I beat you-"

She lifted her left hand off her sword, reaching for Pyrrha's shield and grabbing it, before moving to kick Pyrrha in the stomach. The red-haired girl was forced to move back before she was kicked, and the shield was ripped from her arm in the process.

"-I'll be the _indisputable_ best!"

Letting out a shout, Mordred threw Pyrrha's shield into the distance behind her, away from the fight, and fell into another charge, swinging her sword down. Pyrrha twirled her spear, shifting her grasp of it to hold it in front of her in both hands, ready to deflect blows and make for her shield. As Mordred drew close, however, she suddenly slammed downward. The ground underneath her cratered, and as red light flew upwards through the path the blade had travelled, while several rocks were thrown upwards. Flipping with her forward momentum, Mordred used her body to push out against the rocks, momentarily speeding forth even faster to clash into them and send them flying towards the champion.

Pyrrha deflected the rocks as they approached, shattering them with the twirling of her spear in front of her, and averted her eyes for a moment as the rocks turned to dust from the force. Her twirling spear created enough wind to push the dust away, and when Pyrrha thought enough had deflected, she looked forward in time to see Mordred grab her spear mid-swing and use it to swing Pyrrha around.

As she lost her footing to the movement Mordred was using, Pyrrha reached with her Semblance, kicked off the ground the instant she felt herself touching it, and used her polarity to shoot her spear forward, past Mordred's grasp and into the armour near her shoulder. It chipped at her Aura and bounced off, but it was enough of a surprise that Pyrrha could rip her spear out of her grasp.

By spinning the spear in this process, the portion Mordred was holding was pulled to the right while the other end circled to the left, slamming into Mordred's back and making her stumble. Pyrrha kept up the twirl, until the point of her spear stabbed into the gap in Mordred's armour, peeling away the armour on Mordred's left.

Prying it apart yet again, Pyrrha ignored how Mordred once again started glowing with red lightning that zapped at her, gritting her teeth as she ignored the pain to pull through.

"That's the spirit!" Mordred declared, ripping her sword to the side as she slashed at Pyrrha, forcing her to duck under it. "Go on! Gawain was talking all that good shit about your skill, was my brother just praising you to be polite?"

A laugh fell from her as she kicked at Pyrrha's spear, forcing it away, and Pyrrha started shifting it into the sword form, quickly firing the rifle form behind her in the process to force Mordred to deflect it away from her face while the red-haired girl took her sword and slashed into Mordred's left.

Her Aura was slashed into as Pyrrha used that grip to once again force her weapon into Pyrrha's weakened armour, and started tearing into it again. It shifted into javelin form to put more pressure on that armour. Mordred raise her sword again while letting energy cackle through its path, forcing Pyrrha to let go of her spear to dodge out its path.

For a moment, Pyrrha nearly reached with her Semblance to control it, keep prying away from Mordred. But as the blonde-haired warrior turned to her, she hesitated.

She had been advised to be subtle with her Semblance. She shouldn't be too quick to ruin that now.

Mordred watcher her lower her arm, then curled a fist.

"Are you looking down on me?" Mordred asked. "You were definitely going to do something there, invincible girl! You're still holding back that Semblance of yours!"

Pyrrha dashed in close to grab her spear while Mordred was distracted, and used it to pry away at Mordred's armour again. As Pyrrha ripped through it, she felt a fist hit her face, sending her flying into the distance with spear in hand.

"Give it your all or go home!" The blonde girl roared. "If you're convictions are weak, then why are you even here!"

Rushing in close again, Pyrrha twirled her spear as she sprinted in close to build up momentum with it, slamming the side of it across Mordred's now exposed stomach to cut into it, dealing a big hit to her Aura. Mordred ignored it, forcing herself further into Pyrrha's pointed spear and eating the damage to get in close enough to swing her sword, slamming it across in a blow that missed but left a trail of red that stung as it touched Pyrrha.

...Why was she even here?

She used her spear to push Mordred's arm up and away, allowing her a chance to get a shot at Mordred's opened up weak points, only for Mordred to suddenly barge forward without moving her legs, slamming into Pyrrha and forcing her back.

What was she getting, out of this fight? A fortune she didn't need, which she had a dozen time over at this point. Battle experience that was already more than anyone her age, to the point where she was at least on par or above most average Hunters. Fame which meant nothing to her. Glory which she had nobody to share with.

She'd seen people react to winning or losing fights. When Mordred got into the finals, she'd had a team backing her up singing he praises, celebrating with her. When Pyrrha got into the final round, she stepped into a changing room and sat, alone, while she rested. Nobody wanted to bother the invincible girl.

So why did she even keep doing this?

Mordred headbutted her, then threw Pyrrha over her shoulder and slammed her back down, face first. The red-haired girl quickly put out a hand in front of her, bouncing off the ground, and landing on her feet, only to feel Mordred barging into her back the instant she stopped.

"You might want to show off that Semblance of your soon." Mordred growled. "'Cause you wanna know a secret? This lightning flash of mine is a propulsion trick. Like a jet engine going off at a point I control. I could move around in plate casually if I used it enough. But you know what?"

Suddenly, she was in front of Pyrrha, hitting her with the hilt of her sword.

"It's _even better_ without all that dead weight."

Ripping off the armour around her arm, Mordred threw it at Pyrrha as she moved to remove the armour on her other arm. With how much of her was already exposed, Mordred apparently wasn't going to put up with covering her arms if she had her vital areas more exposed.

"So you better start taking me seriously." Mordred grinned. "Or you're not gonna last much longer."

In a flash of red, Pyrrha felt a hand on her head, before a sudden great momentum pushed down on her, throwing her into the ground. She bounced, and Mordred grabbed her leg, spun, and threw her. Pyrrha felt her weapon slip away from her, and collided with a wall some distance away.

Pyrrha hadn't really cared about the fights beyond winning, to this point. After all, she had won a few tournaments already. May as well keep up the reputation. She was already a symbol of strength. If she kept winning, she'd be something for people to rally behind. But wouldn't someone who beat her just as easily be able to do that?

Wouldn't someone who actually cared about being the best deserve to win more?

...No, damn it, she wasn't going to doubt herself here. There were too many people rooting for her for her to let them down.

Even if they were complete strangers who'd never actually talk to her..

She needed to keep fighting. She needed to try, at least.

Standing up and looking up at Mordred, Pyrhha reached out with her hand.

Mordred wanted her to go all out. If she wanted to stand a chance, she'd have to do everything she could.

The polarity reaching for her shield lifted it up, and Pyrrha swiftly drew her hand upwards and backwards. A moment later, Mordred cried out, as Pyrrha's shield struck her in the back of the skull.

Setting off into a run, Pyrrha drew close, as her sword also flew towards her. It stabbed into Mordred's side as Pyrrha carried it around, and she grabbed it the instant she was close, twirling around to hit her in the stomach as it transformed into rifle form, before pushing back and opening fire. With a bit of concentration, she was able to bring her shield around as Mordred approached her, but Mordred being the faster of the two, she got into melee range first.

" _Finally_!" She exclaimed, as she swung at Pyrrha, who was forced to clash swords to keep the blow at bay long enough. "What have we got here? Telekinesis? Something else?"

Pyrrha's shield finally came around and hit her opponent in the face, making Mordred stumble back, allowing Pyrrha to take the offensive. She stepped forward, swung her sword, hitting towards Mordred's neck. Step forward, slam pommel into face. Step forward, then step back as Mordred was thrown backwards by her Semblance, blasting red lightning in her wake to force Pyrrha out of the way.

As she looked over at Mordred, Pyrrha took a moment to consider her Aura, while her shield threw itself off towards her opponent again.

She already had to reveal her Semblance in this fight. At this point, there was no point in holding back. The ground was dirt and then stone, but the walls were solid steel.

Closing her eyes and holding her hands out either side, dropping her weapon in the process, Pyrrha concentrated, pulling at the walls of the arena everywhere she could. The steel gates that had blocked their ways were ripped from their places, as several chunks of the arena walls cracked and tore and twisted and collapsed.

"You've been holding _this_ back?" Mordred asked, with a laugh. The chunks of wall ripped off in large steel areas, and Pyrrha opened her eyes as she smashed her hands together, bringing all the steel down on her.

Holding her sword and pointing at Pyrrha, Mordred made no move to dodge.

"Let's do this." She said, the red light engulfing her and arcing around her. She pointed her sword at Pyrrha, and as the steel projectiles smashed around her.

It flickered for a moment, before an explosive sound rang out. Mordred was thrown backwards, as she jetted back, the red lightning condensing into a single arc that smashed through the steel flying towards her, narrowing in on Pyrrha.

Eye's wide, Pyrrha threw as much steel as she could between her and the beam, and started running. Mordred twisted her sword as she watched, wiping out masses of metal in droves as she cut through. More and more smashed into Mordred, even as the red lightning struck Pyrrha, who raise her sword at the last moment to try an divert some of it away from her.

The world went red, and the world exploded. Pyrrha's concentration broke, and the steel collapsed all around the arena. A horn blared in the distance, announcing the end to the match, and for a moment, Pyrrha stumbled to push some steel off of her, looking up to the sky. The barrier above the arena faded away, showing the cheering of the crowd, while a large sign displayed their faces and Aura level.

Both current competitors were below ten percent Aura.

"Ugh..." Mordred complained, pushing off a steel pile off of her. "Keep forgetting how much that hurts..."

Groaning and looking up, Mordred saw the screen, and frowned.

"...Close." She muttered. "Too close..."

"Look at this, folks!" The announcer declared. "Both fighters have fallen under the point of disqualification! Analysts are examining the readings to play back the exact moments of Aura loss for each, to determine the victor, as we speak!"

Pyrrha looked up at the crowd, watching them cheer and chant and scream.

So many signs listing her name above them, so many people cheering her on, expecting her to dominate this fight as she had every over. Win or lose, she'd taken down so much of the mystery around her. She wasn't untouchable anymore. Her Semblance was revealed. She'd come so close to losing. And now-

"-Now, ladies and gentlemen, turn your eyes to the replay to determine the victor!"

There was a slow motion, scene by scene replay on the giant screen above her, showing two camera feeds, one of her and one of Mordred.

Mordred was being pelted by smaller steel fragments, and the larger ones smashing into her and throwing off her aim with her red beam attack. Pyrrha, meanwhile, had been given a heavy hit all at once.

There were bars next to each camera, showing how much Aura each fighter had. Mordred was at thirty percent, twenty, fifteen percent, fourteen-

The red lightning struck Pyrrha, and she went from twenty-nine percent to nine percent in a heartbeat.

She'd lost.

And the crowd went _wild_.

It was almost funny. They cheered the same regardless of who won. Mordred would be going backstage to meet family and friends, and Pyrrha would smile and wave for a camera and answer questions for strangers.

...Forget about it. Stand up straight. Smile. Go talk to the de- Victor.

Walking over steel chunks, Pyrrha smiled, and offered a hand to Mordred. "Good match."

Mordred grabbed her hand, shook it rapidly for a moment, and gave a joyous grin. She'd looked like she'd never been happier.

"Haha!" She laughed. "Now _that's_ what I'm talking about. I bet everyone was blown away by that!"

"I'm sure." Pyrrha confirmed. "That was... Impressive."

"Hey, follow me." Mordred declared, turning around and pulling Pyrrha's arm. "It'll take everyone a bit to get from the seats to the victory room, and I've got some fizzy drink we can share until then."

Pyrrha blinked, but nodded, and followed along.

Well, she seemed nice.

They walked through the entry/exit gate, with the cheering crowd behind them, and Mordred pushed through a side-door into her room.

"Here." Mordred declared, still laughing as she opened a small fridge and passed an open can to Pyrrha. "This is the good stuff."

"Thank you." Pyrrha confirmed, nodding.

Mordred got another, chugged down her drink, crushed the can, and threw it into the trash in the corner, laughing all the while.

" _Man_ , I feel great!" She declared "Ay, sorry about beating you there, but _yeah_!"

Pyrrha nodded at her enthusiasm, looking down at her can.

...She was feeling bad about losing a match she wasn't even sure she cared about, when her opponent was this overjoyed about winning?

"Shouldn't we go see the tournament officials?" Pyrrha asked.

"Ah, sod them." Mordred dismissed. "It'll be all 'Oh, we need to make sure you're not hurt' this and 'Smile for the cameras' that. Let's just sit around for a moment, hey? Enjoy a drink. Enjoy the quiet before it all starts. Have a little fun. Don't you agree?"

Pyrrha looked down at her soda can, and thought about it for a moment.

 **[X] ...Mordred's right. It doesn't even matter that much anyone. She should just enjoy the drink and talk with her for a bit.**  
 **[X] Mordred was happy, she didn't need Pyrrha being a bit upset and ruining her mood. She should go, see the officials.**


	48. Three

**[X] ...Mordred's right. It doesn't even matter that much anyone. She should just enjoy the drink and talk with her for a bit.**

Taking a sip of the soft drink Mordred had given to her, Pyrrha tried to push her misgivings out of her mind.

"I suppose I should relax." Pyrrha replied. "We are going to be spending a while in front of cameras soon, aren't we?"

"Yeah!" Mordred replied. "It's a bit of a pain in the ass, going off in front of people. Haha, but man that was a fight! Can't believe how close that was!"

Pyrrha winced slightly, trying to avoid hiding her negative reaction, instead drinking more of her soda. It tasted odd, but she hadn't tried this brand before.

Mordred ripped another can out of her fridge, and immediately poured it down her throat.

"Congratulations." Pyrrha said, with a smile. "You were very impressive out there."

"Damn right I was!" Mordred declared, throwing her can into the trash again. "Hey, did you see the bit where I threw my sword at you? Weren't expecting _that_ , were you?"

"Abandoning your weapon for one attack was... Creative." Pyrrha tried to say.

Mordred grinned. "Yeah, that's it. It's too old a sword to mod it up with a gun, so I had to come up with some sort of ranged attack. I mean, there's my Semblance, but it can be hard getting into the mindset of it."

"Mindset?" Pyrrha asked.

Mordred put up a finger. "You're not getting it out of me that easily. Tell me about yours and I'll describe mine. You did some impressive stuff with that telekinesis or whatever, but I didn't see my armour flying around with the rest of it. What's the secret?"

Pyrrha paused, for a moment.

There was still some mystery regarding her Semblance. If she told Mordred and Mordred told people, then it'd be gone. She'd still be famous even without it, but she'd be more of a known factor.

...But who cared? She'd rather take a moment to enjoy talking with someone over desperately clawing for fame she never really wanted.

"Magnetism." Pyrrha admitted. "Silver isn't magnetic, so my Semblance couldn't touch it."

Mordred looked at her for a moment, then laughed.

"Really?" She asked. "That's it? I though it'd be something about the armour having some sort of echo of my Aura on it or something-"

"That wouldn't be it." Pyrrha clarified. "My Semblance has bypassed Aura beforehand."

Mordred's laugh quieted down. "Eh? You mean you could've shaken me like this-"

She reached into the fridge to pull out another can of her fizzy drink, then frowned.

"It's already open." She muttered. "Why's it already open? Did Lamorak sneak back here just to go through my stuff?"

Shrugging, she chugged it down. "Anyway, where was I?"

"I could have manipulated the armour you were wearing." Pyrrha confirmed.

"Ah, right." Mordred snapped her fingers. "That!"

Pyrrha opened her mouth to keep talking, but suddenly yawned.

"Eh? Tired already?" Mordred asked. "I didn't exhaust you that bad, did I?"

"Sorry." Pyrrha apologised. "I'm just a bit..."

She stepped forward, and stumbled. The world spun in a circle around her, and the sode can she was holding fell to the ground, still half-filled until it began spilling its content.

"Hey, are you alright?" Mordred asked, suddenly kneeling next to her. "You look like you've just eaten a rotten fish. Was there something in your drink?"

Mordred picked up the fallen can, letting a drop of soda land on her finger, and tasted it.

"...It's not any different to what I was drinking." She frowned. "But now that I think about it, it does have a bit of an odd taste..."

Picking Pyrrha and hanging her off the shoulder, Mordred hikes her up.

"Come on, we should do see-"

There was a knock on the door, and Mordred turned to it, pointing Pyrrha towards it in the process. The red-haired girl groaned, as Mordred shouted.

"Hey, open up! There's something going on here!"

The door opened, and Pyrrha saw a woman in a professional looking suit step in.

"Hey, get in here!" Mordred insisted. "We gotta-"

There was a flash, and Mordred stumbled back as a fist suddenly collided with her face.

"What the-" Mordred cried out, as she stumbled back. Pyrrha looked up, and tried to stand, only to stumble and then thrown down by the woman in a suit.

"What are you..." Pyrrha wheezed out, closing her eyes to concentrate as she tried to stand again.

"Odd." The woman noted. "The mixture seems to have taken effect on you, but not Mordred..."

"The hell are you on about?" Mordred snarled, flashing forward and kicking the woman in the stomach, sending her flying out the room. Mordred reached down and grabbed Pyrrha's arm, dragging her up to her feet.

There was a movement in the start, and Pyrrha braced herself. trying to work through the haze descending on her mind.

Two large figures moved in, in similar suits to the original woman, and drew out stun batons, which cackled with blue energy for a moment.

Pyrrha raised her hand, breathed heavily, and swept it to the side, throwing one of the stun batons away from it's owners grip. Mordred dashed forward, punching the now unarmed man in the stomach, making him collapse forward and hit the ground.

The stun baton from the other man hit Mordred in the side, and she grunted in pain as she steadily turned to the side, her movement jittery as she reached for the arm holding the weapon, before throwing it away.

Once the weapon wasn't hitting her, Mordred's movement was suddenly able to move easier, punching forward to hit the second guy in the face to knock him back.

"The hell is this?" Mordred asked. "What the hell are you-"

There was an explosive sound, as a weapon shot into the room, and Mordred was thrown into the distant wall as the original woman stepped back in. She thew a smoking cannon to the ground as she stepped back in, a blank look on her face. Pyrrha stumbled forward and gritted her reeth, as she reached for her opponent.

One of the two burly figures grabbed Pyrrha's arm, and by the time that she realised that she was being held, her arm was suddenly thrown into the wall.

"Why..." She groaned out, looking up. The suited woman picked her up by her throat, and a blade hidden in her palm stabbed forward and hit her Aura, hitting it while grinding her against the wall.

Mordred gave out another cry as she charged forward, and Pyrrha's vision went black. The last thing she saw were the pitying look of red eyes.

* * *

Groaning as she came to, Pyrrha looked around blearily. She stretched her arm, only for it to suddenly stop the a rattling sound. Looking up to her arm, Pyrrha saw a chain locking it to a wall.

...What?

Shaking her head, Pyrrha took a moment to confirm that she appeared to be chained to a wall, and looked around.

The room was dark, damp, unfurnished, with a single steel door the only hint of any way out. No windows, no other holes, nothing.

On the other side of the room, also chained to a wall, was Mordred Gwynarian. She was growling as she pulled at the chains on her wrists, hard enough that her skin had been torn off and the cuffs around her were stained with blood.

"Oi!" Mordred called, as she saw Pyrrha waking up. "Magnets! Little help here?"

Pyrrha blinked, as she adapted to the situation, and she reached out towards Mordred to try and pull at the chains around her arms.

There was a zapping sound, eliciting a scream from Pyrrha as the back of her neck was suddenly overtaken with pain. For a moment, she couldn't concentrate on anything but that pain, until it subsided and fell away.

Groaning and suddenly awake, Pyrrha realised that she'd fallen to her knees at some point. Steadily getting back to her feet, Pyrrha looked up at Mordred.

"S-sorry..." She stammered out.

Mordred swore. 'Where the hell are we?"

As if on cue, a door opened, and a woman in purple stepped in. She wore a small dress, a lighter shade of purple than her hair, which was long enough to reach to her hips. The woman was casually drawing at sections of hair and cutting them with scissors as they walked.

The woman looked up at Pyrrha as she pulled a strain of hair away from her face, revealing the mark of her forehead.

III

Three.

"Hey!" Mordred snarled, as the purple woman entered. "What the hell is going on here?"

The woman ignored her, looking at Pyrrha. "Two in one room? Why... Ah, right. Steel in every room. Not enough electric points, needed to make sure your Semblance wasn't a threat."

From that point, the woman turned to Mordred.

"The champion." She muttered to herself. "Semblance grows stronger with emotion. Most likely best used in experimentation of strongest emotion? Measurable ability to demonstrate. But perhaps certain emotions work better with the Semblance in general? Or perhaps her own emotional state will bias the results. Mental examinations from the tournament demonstrate an aggressive personality, and drawing on a positive emotion, happiness or amusement, will be difficult considering the situation this-"

Mordred spat at the purple woman, landing on her Aura over her face, and the woman continued talking.

"-At the very least, she should be able to be used as a measurement of determining the most powerful of negative emotions, between anger, hatred, and other emotions along those lines. A demonstration should be prepared to examine this. Should take note to acquire her half-brother and see what kind of emotional reactions he can be used to cause-"

Mordred looked up, suddenly roaring.

"Don't you fucking dare!" She screamed. "You leave my brother out of this, you fucking asshole! Cut me down from here and I'll show you what I can do you-"

There was the sound of steel cutting flesh, and as the purple woman turned away, Pyrrha was able to see her scissors stabbed into Mordred's stomach.

Shaking as she looked at the sight, Pyrrha turned to the purple woman.

"You..." She whispered, unsure of how to react. What was even happening here? Why was this happening? What gave her the right?

"Who are you?" Pyrrha asked. The purple woman didn't react, as she leaned against the wall.

"You..." Mordred snarled. "Give a fucking answer!"

The purple woman's breathing slowed, and it took Pyrrha a moment to realise that she had fallen asleep.

A moment passed, before a burly man in a suit stepped in.

"My lady..." He whispered, in a soft voice. "You really need to pay more attention to where you doze off."

"Hey!" Mordred screamed. "The fuck is going on!"

The man stepped away from the sleeping woman, and approached Mordred for a moment.

"I'm sorry." He said. "Lady Three has some... Tendencies... And on her behalf, I apologise."

Coming into reach of Mordred, the man pulled the scissors out of Mordreds stomach, and rested a hand on the wound. There was a brief glow of light, and when the man stepped away, the wound was gone, even if the skin around it was bloodied.

"I'm sorry." He continued. "For this, and what will come to you. You are both too young for this."

"Then why?" Pyrrha asked, looking at the man. "If you don't want this happening to us, then-"

The man looked up to Pyrrha, similar red eyes staring back.

"Do not assume I will help you." He whispered. "Lady Three is more important to me than either of you. If she asked me to kill you right now, I'd do so in a heartbeat. Until then, I can show pity. But do not assume I will betray her obvious motivations."

" _What_ motivations?" Mordred called. "You can't just lock us up here and then tell us nothing about-"

"I can, and I will." The man said, as he carried the purple-haired woman out of the room. The door swung shut behind him, and sealed itself a way.

There was silence, as Mordred and Pyrrha looked at the door. Then, Mordred started struggling again.

"Need to get _out_ of here!" She snarled, as she pulled at one of her arms. "Can't stick around. I need to..."

Pyrrha watched her for a moment, before making a decision.

 **[X] "We were both due for interviews, weren't we? People are looking for us. They'll find us before long if we sit tight."**  
 **[X] "Hold on a moment. If I can ignore the pain enough to loosen one of your chains, you'll hurt yourself less getting out."**


	49. My Creation

**[X] "Hold on a moment. If I can ignore the pain enough to loosen one of your chains, you'll hurt yourself less getting out."**

Mordred stopped struggling for a moment, looking at Pyrrha.

"You think you can break the chains?" She asked.

"...I can try, at least." Pyrrha replied, reaching out with her Semblance. The instant she focused on her Semblance, grabbing the chains with her polarity, the electricity started flowing into the back of her neck, breaking her concentration and making her cry out in pain.

"Shit." Mordred swore. "Hey, cut that out. I can get out of here myself."

The electricity stopped, as Pyrrha groaned, looking up at Mordred again.

"N-No..." She groaned. "I can... Do this..."

She took a deep breath, and tried concentrating again. Her Semblance was focused again, and once more, the shock hit her in the back of her neck. Pyrrha gritted her teeth, focusing on just keeping a grit on her Semblance. She needed to ease into it, focus on just being able to hold the polarity, before she moved on to something before she tried to do anything with it.

Just focus on her Semblance. Keep her grasp on the polarity. Magnetise the chains. Hold on it. Focus on it. Ignore the pain. Hold on. Ignore-

"Argh!" She screamed, falling to the ground but being held up of her chains. Breathing heavily, Pyrrha dug her nails in her palm to try and avoid any risk of passing out.

Closing her eyes, Pyrrha tried to concentrate more.

"Oi, enough!" Mordred called again. "The hell are you doing?"

"G-Getting you out..." Pyrrha panted out of gritted teeth. Without standing again, she reached out to grab the chain at Mordred's wrist, locking it in place for a moment.

She needed a different tact this time. She kept failing because she was trying to overcome the shocks. She couldn't stand it for long. So she had to rip away at the chains _before_ it got to her.

As the shocks struck her for the third time in as so many minutes, Pyrrha grasped her polarity and ripped away at the chains at Mordred's wrist. There was the sound of snapping, and Pyrrha collapsed, taking shaky breaths for a moment before she looked back up to Mordred.

"Did..." She wheezed out, as she tried to stand. Her leg slipped under her, causing her to collapse again, before she shakily got to her feet while leaning against the wall.

In response, there was the sound of steel shattering, as Mordred tore her right arm off the wall, the chains breaking behind her.

"Perfect." She replied. "How about you? Are you alright?"

"I'm..." Pyrrha muttered, trying to focus. "I'm fine."

She looked over at Mordred, who grabbed the chain around her left hand and stepped away, pulling out of the wall while holding the chain in both hands. She grunted as she pulled, and after a moment, the wall started crumbling as Mordred pulled the chain through. After a moment, the eye-bolt attaching the chain to the wall was ripped out, still attached to the chain on Mordred's arm, and she rubbed her wrist for a moment as it hung off her.

"Good enough." She declared, as she walked over to Pyrrha. "Now be honest. How bad did that hurt? We're gonna get out of here, and if you need me to help you-"

"Sorry..." Pyrrha groaned.

"Oi, stop that." Mordred declared, putting a bare hand over a small sensor on Pyrrha's back. "When I say go, start pulling with your right hand."

Pyrrha nodded.

"Then go!"

Pyrrha forced her right arm to move, straining on the steel, as she heard a cackling sound from behind her head. After the moment, there was a cracking sound, and Pyrrha stumbled forward a step before the chain on her left caused her to swing around as she fell.

"Ugh." She groaned, getting to her feet again and looking back at Mordred. She was shaking her hand, and Pyrrha briefly saw some sort of electric burn on it.

"Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked. "I'm sorr-"

"Enough with the apologies." Mordred snapped. "You can apologise after we get out of here."

Pyrrha reached up to the other chain with her Semblance, and ripped the chain off the wall. The sensor on the wall cackled with energy that eventually arced out and shocked her arm. Pyrrha bit her tongue to avoid crying out again.

She was down, now. She needed to be strong, now. Needed to get out of...

Wherever they were.

"We need to move." Pyrrha declared, walking up to the steel door of the room with her arm at her side.

"Stand behind me." Mordred said, stepping forward. Pyrrha blinked.

"But-"

"Your Semblance will get through this easier." Mordred noted. "But if there's someone on the other side serving as a guard, they might shoot through before you get the door down. If I'm blocking you from anything on the other side, you at least might be able to get out."

Pyrrha desperately wanted to argue against that. She didn't want anyone risking getting hurt for her. But it'd be smarter to focus on getting out, over arguing with her ally.

"Fine then." She replied, before reaching out with both hands. Mordred stepped in front of her as she parted her hands, the steel of the doors parting slowly as she did so. It crumbled, cracked and opened outwards, as Pyrrha tore it open.

"Nobody there." Mordred noted, sticking her head out and looking around. "Come on. Let's go. Might not be any alarms going, but if there's nobody watching then I'd be surprised."

Mordred stepped through the hole in the steel door, and Pyrrha followed her after a moment. The hallways past it where empty, and poorly lit, but the material of the walls was familiar somehow...

"Left or right?" Mordred asked, looking around.

Pyrrha was quiet for a moment. "...I don't hear anyone coming, so... Either?"

"Let's try the left, then." Mordred muttered. "Wait, hang on, do you think you could tear off a chunk of that steel door? Like a club?"

Pyrrha turned to the door, and closed her eyes. "I can try..."

Steel groaned as Pyrrha ripped off a chunk of it, eventually pulling out a thick section as long as her arm. Letting it hover for a moment, Pyrrha let it go as she Mordred grabbed it.

"Good enough." She muttered. "It's not a proper weapon, and I could throw it if I'm desperate, I guess."

Sighing, Mordred held the makeshift club over her shoulder, and started heading to the left. Pyrrha followed her, and they walked in silence for a moment.

"...So, what happened after I lost consciousness?" Pyrrha asked.

"Not much." Mordred muttered bitterly. "I was too low on Aura after the tournament fight, and they were bringing some heavy weapons too. Not sure how the management didn't overhear the cannon going off, or how they got around the cameras, but I wasn't in a good enough state to fight them after a few hits. I hit them just as bad, at least, but..."

"...There's something strange going on." Pyrrha muttered. "They were able to get into the backstage, right when our Aura's where lowest, and when security should have been highest. Nobody interfered with the fight. They were able to get us out of there while we were down without being stopped. It's... Strange."

Mordred looked back at her. "You thinking that the people in charge of the tournament might have been involved?"

"I..." Pyrrha trailed off. It wasn't a nice thought. The people who managed the Mistral Tournament were fairly important people, and vetted heavily. If they were willing to help capture the champion and runner-up, then what did that imply about how much influence the people responsible had?

"...How long were we out anyway?" Mordred asked "My Aura's still down, so it can't have been long, but they still managed to get us into a cell and chain us up. We can't have been out too long, right? Can't be too far from the arena."

"Hopefully." Pyrrha muttered, as they passed a door.

"...Hold on." Mordred stopped by the door. "Might be something in here."

She pressed a button by the steel door, and it swung open. She looked inside, and paled slightly.

Pyrrha stepped in to look what was inside the room, and her breath stopped as she stared inwards. There was a figure chained to the wall, viciously ripping away at it, with a pile of corpses on the other side of the room. Each of them was bloated, their skin discoloured in a variety, from unnaturally pale, to a dark blue and purple, to a bloody red.

The figure against the wall was a kind hulking behemoth of a person, their features deformed and looking far from human, and their skin pitch black, not unlike that of a Grimm.

"What the hell?" Pyrrha asked. "What..."

The figure let out an echoing scream, and Pyrrha wasn't sure what to think of it. It sounded angry, mindless, but more than that...

...Pained.

Mordred pushed Pyrrha aside, stepping into the room while holding her club.

"Oi!" She called. "The hell are you?"

The not-human creature looked down at the girl, and screamed again, reaching out for her while reaching for her head. The chains stopped it before it could reach for Mordred, as it mindlessly called out, snarling at her.

"...I see." She noted, before smashing her makeshift club into its head. The club made a crunching sound, and the creature was dazed for a moment, before Mordred followed up, hitting it another two times before eventually caving in the monster's skull.

Pyrrha took a step back, at that.

"The hell has that Three woman been doing to these people?" Mordred asked. "That thing... That was a mad dog, not a..."

She took a deep breath, before turning away from it, and towards the door.

"We need to get the hell out of here." She said. "I'm not going to-"

She trailed off, as she tilted her head to raise her ear. Pyrrha listened too, and heard footsteps in the hallway.

"Hide." Pyrrha whispered, looking around for somewhere in the room they could get into. Mordred put her club on the ground, and walked towards the pile of corpses in the back.

She gestured Pyrrha towards her, and the woman in red hair made sure she was breathing.

...There wasn't any other options. Whoever was coming would be here soon, and the room was empty apart from the one thing. Following Mordred, Pyrrha shifted one of the bodies, and as the rotting flesh spun, reached for her mouth, desperately trying not to throw up. She forced herself to stay quiet, as she looked at Mordred hide under the bodies.

...She couldn't do this, she-

Didn't have a choice. She was too weak right now to do anything, and if they were caught...

Laying down on the ground, Pyrrha shifted one of the bodies to be on top of her, but left her head exposed. Well, slightly. She shifted another body to block her head from the view, but otherwise left it uncovered.

Closing her eyes and trying not to think about where she was, Pyrrha listened to the footsteps as they entered the room, alongside the sound of cutting scissors.

"...Oh, Glatisant." She sighed. "Why did they do this to you? You were such a milestone. A doll who had survived past the procedure. You could have been..."

She sighed, as she trailed off.

"You were screaming not long ago." She noted. "They couldn't have gotten too far..."

She trailed off, looking at the door.

"...They couldn't have passed me." She spoke aloud, before yawning. "No, need to stay awake now. They might break more of my dolls."

There was the sound of movement, before a brief cackle of static and Three talking louder.

"Guard the left-wing stairs." She ordered. "Don't let them up."

And with that, she yawned again, and left the room.

There was silence, for a long time, before Pyrrha felt comfortable moving again. Trying not to think as she pushed off the object on top of her, she stood, and considered what Three had said.

She seemed confident that only one location needed to be guarded, which meant there was only one way out. Likely the way she had come from, unless she just just lived down with all of her...

...Victims, was the best word.

Which meant that Mordred and her would have to fight their way out, she realised.

"Well, crap." Mordred swore. "Any plans, magnets?"

Pyrrha thought on it for a moment.

 **[X] They didn't have a choice. They'd just have to try and fight their way through, and hope for the best.**  
 **[X] Three mentioned having more 'Dolls.' If they opened all the doors and cut loose the monsters, they could create a distraction.**  
 **[X] Pyrrha could reveal herself to whoever was guarding the stairs and lure them away, and give Mordred time to run and find help.**


	50. Escape

**[X] Three mentioned having more 'Dolls.' If they opened all the doors and cut loose the monsters, they could create a distraction.**

"How many doors do you think there are down here?" Pyrrha asked.

"I didn't pass many." Mordred noted. "But we haven't walked too far from our cell. Probably a few?"

"This might work, then." Pyrrha said to herself. "Three said she had more of those... Things."

She tried not to look at the chained up corpse, as Mordred picked up her club.

"If we let a few of them free..." Pyrrha mused. "Let loose enough that Three and the people working with her have to fight them instead of us..."

"Why are we assuming they'll fight Three's people?" Mordred asked.

"They're chained up for a reason." Pyrrha replied. "I don't think those monsters can really tell people apart."

"...Fair enough." Mordred admitted. "Which way, though? Follow Three and let things loose that way? Or let them loose as we move to the exit?"

"I... Would prefer we move to the exit." Pyrrha admitted. "The closer we get, the better our odds will be if we need to run. Which may be likely, considering the monsters might also try to attack us..."

"Well, let's go then." Mordred said, putting her club on her shoulder again as she walked out the door. As she did so, she turned back and lowered her voice.

"Don't make too much noise." She whispered. "We don't want Three overhearing us."

Pyrrha nodded, and didn't speak, as she followed Mordred out. There was only so many things she could focus on, and right now, between trying to stay quiet and trying not to freak out, she was plenty distracted. Talking risked slipping up, being too loud or giving herself away somehow. She didn't need the distraction.

They walked along for a time, until Pyrrha and Mordred came across another steel door. Mordred walked up to it, and pressed the button by it, before ducking to the side of the wall as it slid open. Pyrrha hid on the other side, and peeked in, trying not to be visible from inside the room.

The positioning meant that she only got a brief side-view of the being inside the room before she ducked back in, but within the room, she got a glimpse of some stone-like figure. She would have mistaken it for a statue, if it wasn't chained to the wall. It was androgynous in gender, but appeared to have a human body, except its legs looked like someone had cut off it's feat and replaced it with horse hooves, while also attaching the back of a horse to the back of the person.

It was facing the wall, so that the chains would keep it captured without causing problems with it's horse-like back, so Pyrrha looked inward and saw what else was in the room.

Once more, there were bodies littering the back of the room. Human ones, as usual, but also some slaughtered animal part. The head of a pig, the front of a horse, a dead dog with its head attached to a human body, a cat with a human head, and many others. Some of them were like stone, and some of them were unnaturally big, but all of them were laying in bloody pieces.

Pyrrha very pointedly looked away from the corpses, focusing on the manacles around the stone beasts hands, and used her magnetism to snap the chains. The centaur creature looked at them, confused, and turned to look around.

Pyrrha slipped back to the wall, blocking her head from view, and crouched down near the ground. Mordred mimicked her actions, as the stone-like thing started moving. It stepped outside of the door, ducking under it to step into the open, and Pyrrha quickly rolled through it's horse legs to get into the room before it could look around. As the horse legs stepped outside the door, Mordred quickly passed her club to Pyrrha before sliding in as the centaur looked around.

It wandered off, towards the direction Pyrrha and Mordred had come from, and Mordred poked her head out as it walked away.

"...Well, that thing's gonna go run into Three." She noted. "We should hurry. Stop worrying about being sneaky."

"If you think so." Pyrrha nodded, looking out herself as the centaur turned a corner. Stepping out of the room a moment later, Pyrrha looked the other direction and started walking at a brisk pace.

Mordred quickly overtook her, walking ahead, before coming to a split in the path. The path straight ahead continued, while another hallway opened up to the left and continued down for a bit.

"Split path." Mordred muttered. "No signs, too. Which way?"

Pyrrha looked around, for a moment.

"...This is about halfway through the path." She noted. "And this hallway looks like it turns right at the end. I think the left is more likely to lead to the exit? Or at least to somewhere different."

Mordred nodded. "Good enough, I suppose. But let's get the door over here first."

Mordred kept walking for a bit, coming to another steel door, and she and Pyrrha once again stood either side of the doorway as Mordred pressed a button. It opened, and Pyrrha looked in.

Inside the room was a half-dozen people, kept in cages rather than chained to the wall. Each of them seemed simple enough, but upon looking at them closely, Pyrrha realised their body parts were mismatched. There was a tall, pale man with a much smaller, dark-skinned arm ob his left, an even bigger and longer tanned arm on his right, and the legs of a child. There was a tiny head attached to a huge, hulking body. There were cases of a small torso but overly-long limbs, large bodies with tiny limbs that forced the person to be on all fours to keep themselves upright.

Each of them were staring straight ahead, entirely non-responsive, as Pyrrha stared at them. Unsteadily, she raised an arm, and tore away at one of the bars of the cages, which folded outwards as it snapped. She repeated this project for a short time, until there was a large enough gap in all the cages for the people to walk through.

They failed to respond.

"...This is creeping me out." Mordred admitted. "There's a lot of them, they're all messed up, and they're not doing anything. Let's just move on."

Pyrrha nodded, leaving behind the strange group. She paused for a moment, before choosing to leave the door open. If they did something at some point, that could be a distraction.

What the hell was going down here, anyway? Three was taking people and... Doing _things_ to them, calling the results her dolls. This was like some story about a mad scientist. No matter how she looked at it, none of it really seemed real.

Maybe that was for the best. Even as she was, she was barely able to bring herself to talk, with how horrifying the sights were. If she was properly processing it...

She and Mordred came across another door, as they started walking down the other path that they thought could lead to an exit, and Pyrrha pressed the button to open it.

Inside were a collection of Grimm beasts. Three Ursa's, a Beowolf, and a Minos. The bull-Grimm was glowing green, as it looked towards the open door, and it began stamping its hooves as it prepared for a charge.

Pyrrha noticed that they weren't chained up, or restrained in any way beyond the steel door that she had just opened.

"We should run." She suggested.

Mordred suddenly sprinted down the hallway, and Pyrrha followed her, after a moment. Mordred's metal club was dropped to the ground to drop weight. They wouldn't be fighting these Grimm, they needed them to serve as a distraction, so they'd need to keep out of their reach. Thundering hooves followed for a moment, growing closer and closer, as the Minos charged faster than either girl could run. Looking ahead, Pyrrha noticed another steel door, and reached out to find the metal button that opened the door, pushing it inwards.

The door swung open as Pyrrha ran into it, pulling Mordred aside, and the Minos tried to stop and ended up slamming into the wall that was ahead of it a bit.

Pyrrha looked back for a moment, looking at a human-ish figure with a similar green glow as the Minos, and Pyrrha briefly ripped off its chains from a distance before running out of the room. One of the Ursa's went into the door, Pyrrha noticed as she looked back with Mordred right behind here, and there was the sound of a detonation and a splatter of blood a moment later.

There was a distant thundering of feet from behind the Grimm, which was quickly drowned out by the Beowolf howling.

"So much for stealth." Mordred noted, as she and Pyrrha ran past the Minos, which was pulling its head out of a wall. It briefly shimmered as it heard the two of them turn the corner around it, but the light died down as they ran into the distance.

Ahead of them, there was the sound of shouting, and running. Pyrrha focused on that sound. It was likely to be Three's people, which meant they were getting close to the exit.

A large figure turned the corner ahead of Pyrrha, and the girl swiped her hand to the left, forcing any metal on him to be thrown in that direction. A stun baton in the man's belt was thrust to the side, alongside a few coins that were ripped from his pocket. As his gaze followed the baton, Mordred leaped forward and punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground and leaving him to the Ura's that were chasing the two.

"Keep going!" Mordred called, as she noticed Pyrrha's gaze turning back, and she looked ahead as the two girls turned the corner again. The suited woman from earlier was standing by a set of stairs, holding a cannon that had expanded to lower a stand and extend two small machine guns on either side of it.

As Pyrrha came into view, the woman flipped a switch on the cannon, and opened fire. The shooting sounds echoed as the dust rounds shot out, and Pyrrha ducked and rolled to avoid them. If they were regular bullets, she could do something, but dust rounds? Not magnetic in the slightest.

She rolled on the ground, as she heard Mordred dodge around behind her, and repositioned herself as she slid on the ground so she could kick upwards and aim the cannon at the roof. It fired upwards, blasting a hole in the roof and revealing another floor above it, and Pyrrha jumped up and landed on her feet, throwing the gun to the side in the process.

The woman in a suit punched Pyrrha in the stomach, and she doubled over in pain. A second fist hit the side of Pyrrha's face, punching her into a wall. She spat out blood, as she stood up to face the woman, and Mordred jumped in suddenly to headbutt the woman.

There was a melodic screech from the distance, vaguely similar to Three's voice.

The woman, with her Aura intact, recovered first, throwing Mordred into a wall and charging in to follow through. Stretching out her hand, Pyrrha used her Semblance to pick up the cannon on the ground and threw it at the woman, who stopped her charge into Mordred to dodge it. Mordred took the opportunity to pull herself off the wall and punch the woman in the face.

There was a roar, as an Ursa ran around the corner and made a beeline for the fight. The woman in a suit grabbed Mordred's arm and threw her at the Ursa, and Pyrrha pulled herself off the wall to charge against the bear Grimm before it could do anything. Pyrrha's leg kicked upwards to hit it in the stomach, and the Ursa paused, giving Mordred time to recover.

Mordred jumped up, landing on the Ursa's head, before jumping again, aiming for the hole in the roof. The woman in the suit caught her an instant before she made it through the hole, and threw her back down. Pyrrha looked back, but quickly re-concentrated on the Ursa, leaping up at it and wrapping her arms around its neck. The Grimm struggled for a moment, slamming into the wall behind it to force Pyrrha off, and Pyrrha heard something like a bone cracking in her chest before she managed to snap its neck. She looked to the side, and saw the tall man in a suit trying to hold back the other two Ursa's and the Beowolf without his weapon, but as the Minos charged forward, he leaped to the side.

Pyrrha jumped up the wall, running up it for a moment as the Minos charged behind her, and as she started to jump away to safety, a sudden force hit her in her back. She briefly saw the cannon beneath her, before she fell to the ground. The Minos began to glow, and Pyrrha felt a hand suddenly grab her and throw her away as it detonated.

Mordred, having rushed to Pyrrha's aid, caught the brunt of the explosion, being thrown forward as the explosive force burnt at her. Without her Aura, that had to hurt. The woman stood over Pyrrha and Mordred, and drew a knife out of her sleeve.

There was a scream from around the hallway, and the woman paled, before running off around the corner.

A moment passed, with the sound of conflict right around the corner, as Pyrrha struggled to get to her feet. As she stood, Mordred crawled forward, and Pyrrha noticed that her legs were bleeding heavily.

"Shit..." Mordred groaned. "Just get out of here, magnets. I'll figure something out."

Pyrrha picked Mordred up, holding the blonde girl over her shoulders.

"I'm not leaving you." Pyrrha insisted.

"Idiot." Mordred snapped. "You'll never..."

Pyrrha heard another scream from around the corner, as well as several pained groans.

"...Sounds like something set off the frankensteins." Mordred noted. "Lets... Not, wait and see what they do to people."

Pyrrha noted, as she rushed ahead. She dashed up the stairs, and paused momentarily to open the door, careful not to lose her grip on Mordred in the process. Once the door was open, Pyrrha started running. The door opened into a small metal room with several other doors, and a damaged camera in the corner.

"...This is still the arena." She noted, looking at the walls. "That construction, the concrete in the walls and the paint job, its all the same."

"Huh." Mordred noted. "So this is why they don't like people looking into the employees only section."

Pyrrha nodded. Still in the arena...

That had to mean they didn't need to get far, to get out. Just past these steel doors, and whatever else there was. The arena was a big place with a lot of paths people weren't usually allowed in, so it might take a while, but she just needed to find a window and they could get out...

"...Hey?" Mordred asked. "Wasn't there two of those big guys when we were being captured? And just one down there?"

Pyrrha gulped. "I... Think so..."

"Can we run a bit faster?" Mordred asked. Pyrrha nodded, as she reached for a door.

Sealed shut. An electronic seal of some sort, not a lock or key. The door just wasn't opening.

Pyrrha paled, and wandered to the next door. Same problem. No way to open it. The third, and then the fourth, final door, both had the same problem.

"...I'm going to have to make some noise." Pyrrha noted, as she put Mordred down so she could reach for the door with both hands. She closed her eyes and concentrated, before tearing out one of the doors and throwing it back towards the door leading down.

"We need to hurry." Pyrrha noted, picking Mordred back up. The blone girl grumbled at being held up like that, but went with it. Pyrrha started running again, down a hallway with a couple of doors that, upon being checked, just led to small rooms with no windows and a cupboard.

At the end of a hallway was another door that Pyrrha could open, which led to a much longer corridor. The red haired girl stuck out her hair, and looked either way. Down one way, there was a wall.

Down the other, standing in front of a window, was the second large man.

"Oh no." Pyrrha whispered, as she backed up. "Mordred, we need to hide."

"Don't need to tell me." The girl whispered back, as Pyrrha slipped back into the hallway and hid in one of the rooms with no other ways in or out. The large man must have seen her, and be chasing them, but they couldn't run. Pyrrha wouldn't be able to sneak past him or open another one of the sealed doors on the way back. She needed to...

She took a deep breath, and thought for a moment.

"I have a plan." She decided, eventually.

 **[X] If Pyrrha fought the big man, Mordred would have time to slip past and get out the window, hopefully find help.**  
 **[X] The man might not have seen Mordred. If Pyrrha runs and lures him away, he wouldn't have reason to look for Mordred.**


	51. Careless Surgeon

**[X] If Pyrrha fought the big man, Mordred would have time to slip past and get out the window, hopefully find help.**

"He only saw my head." Pyrrha pointed out. "He wouldn't have seen you. And if I fight him, he'll be too distracte to see you sneaking by. The window was right behind him. Do you think you can move enough to go get help?"

Mordred looked up at her. "You're not thinking of fighting without your Aura-"

"I'm in a better condition." Pyrrha interrupted, whispering. "And I haven't seen you use your Semblance since this all started, so I'm assuming it relies on your Aura to work. I'm more likely to walk away from a fight, and _we don't have time_ to waste arguing."

Outside the rooms closed doors, there were some footsteps, the sound of a door closing, and the sound of another door opening.

"He's right there." Pyrrha continued to whisper. "I can distract him. Can you get away?"

Mordred looked up, and nodded. Pyrrha let her down, as they heard another door closing outsid, and she waited by the door for a moment. Then, the door to the room she was in opened, and Pyrrha pushed forward with magnetic power as it did so.

The large man looked back briefly as the stun baton was torn out of his hand, and as he turned back to Pyrrha, the girl rushed forward and punched him in the face. He stumbled back, and she pushed passed him.

If Mordred was going to sneak out, Pyrrha needed to distract him from a distance, so Mordred wasn't at risk of getting caught at all. Holding out a palm and pulling the stun baton towards her, Pyrrha caught it as it flew through the air, and quickly pressed the first button on it.

Energy arced out it it, striking the wall above Pyrrha, so she pointed it at the tall man and held the button down. He cried out as the lightning arced into him, and as it clashed into his Aura, he started walking forward. His speed increased the longer he ran down, and eventually, he was all but sprinting at Pyrrha. The girl briefly saw Mordred stumble out of the open door, moving dragging herself towards the way out, and flipped backwards, backing up as fast as she could until she got to the end of the path, by the steel door she had torn open.

Her opponent finally caught up to her here, grabbing her by the neck, holding her into the air, and slamming her into the ground. She cried out as she felt her ribs cracking, but still managed to work up the strength to point the stun baton upwards as she hit the ground, slamming it into the mans leg. He started jittering in place, and trying to reach down for Pyrrha, so she let go of the baton, holding it against him with her Semblance while moving back into the old room, and as she got out of range, flipped it around, stopping him from grabbing it as she let it off of him for a moment before slamming it into the back of his head.

He leaned his head forward, and Pyrrha quickly move the baton down into his back before he could move freely again. Behind him, in the distance, Pyrrha saw Mordred shutting the door as she exited out of it, and as it did so, Pyrrha ran forward and punched the man in the face again so he wouldn't hear the door shutting.

Mordred was moving slowly, but the door was within reach. Pyrrha just needed to keep the man distracted until then.

She followed through, moving to punch him in the face again, and the man glowed blue for a moment, before a shockwave expanded out from him and threw Pyrrha backwards. She hit the back of her head against the steel door as she flew through the hole, and hit the ground a moment later, her world being replaced with pain.

A moment later, she realised the blow had caused her concentration to lapse and the stun baton to fall to the ground. As she came to this realisation, a hand grabbed her head, blocking her view as it lifted her off the ground.

Her leg swung around to kick forward, striking the name in the side of the neck and making his grip loosen from the pain. Pyrrha used this as a chance to kick away from him with her other leg, flipping in the air again to land on her feet, before she turned around and fled. Getting some distance, Pyrrha spotted the hole in the floor, and briefly considered jumping down it, before deciding it wouldn't be the smartest move.

But perhaps she could try something with it.

Reaching with her Semblance to make sure the door from the stairs was closed. Pyrrha jumped at the ground and rolled to dodge out of the way of the big man, landing near the hole. From within it, she could hear the faint sound of a melodic song, and the sound of blades cutting flesh. Ignoring it, Pyrrha remained stationary for a moment as the man ran at her. Pyrrha jumped at him at the last second, grabbing his arm and using it to boost herself upwards, then spun around as she fell and swept him off his feet.

The man hit the ground face first, and as he stumbles to his feet, Pyrrha calls the stun baton to her again and jabs it into his side. He falls back to the ground as the electricity causes his muscles to spasm, and while Pyrrha used her Semblance to jam the arcing energy into his side, she stands away from him before kicking him in the chest, eventually pushing him into the hole.

As he fell, Pyrrha called the baton back to her, before turning to the steel doors around her. If she opened a few more of them, then she'd be able to run when needed and if she wasn't followed, her pursuers wouldn't be able to chase her down as easily.

Grabbing one of the doors, Pyrrha ripped if open with magnetic force, before she noticed the door leading to the stairs open. She turned to it, pointing the stun baton at it, before a melodic scream echoed out, and Pyrrha watched the baton fall to the floor, with three of her fingers still attached. Then the pain hit her like a truck and she screamed.

In front of her, Three cut at her hair again, cutting it down to shoulder length, before she jammed her scissors into Pyrrha's chest.

"Found you." She said, yawning. "Where's the other?"

Pyyrha gritted her teeth, before she grabbed Three's arms and pulled the scissors out of her chest. She felt blood pour down, and Three jammed the blades back in as Pyrrha tried to step away.

"Stop that." She muttered, tired. "I'm very annoyed with you right now. Piggie's dead, Big, Middle and Little are dead, Asterion is dead, Pony is dead, there's only one of Swarm left..."

She grabbed Pyrrha into the back of the head and slammed her into the ground. The red-haired girl cried out as the knife hit the ground and was pushed further into her chest, its positioning perfect to scrape the side of her heart without piercing it.

As Pyrrha looked up, she saw one of the big men and the woman in a suit walking up the stairs, watching Three's actions.

"Find the other one." Three ordered. "If she's close to escaping, kill her."

The woman stepped forward. "My lady, there's been a commotion. Perhaps-"

Three sighed. "I'll put her in the mobile lab. Blue, go find the other one."

The woman in a suit nodded, and walked off."

"And what of me, my lady?" The bigger man asked.

"Make sure the explosives are set." Three ordered. "I'll leave in the commotion."

"At once." The man said, bowing, before going back downstairs. Three grabbed Pyrrha by the throat, and followed the big man down, before taking a left when the other man went right.

"You've annoyed me." Three admitted. "But that's okay. You won't be able to deny me soon."

Pyrrha struggled for a moment, but Three tightened her grip, denying her oxygen until the struggle stopped. The girl with red hair felt a tear drop down her face, as Three continued talking.

"I wasn't sure what to do with you." Three admitted. "Since the other girl won, I was thinking of having you be the practice run. I'd get an Ursa, cut off its limbs, cut off your limbs, and start experimenting with a proper fusion."

"You-" Pyrrha wheezed.

"Did you know that this is rather difficult?" Three asked. "A Grimm exists as a soulless entity. Having it and someone else fused together, in the past, usually leads to one or the other bleeding out. The one time I avoided that, the mans Aura interacted strangely with the Grimm's soullessness, and the black flesh disintegrated once it was properly a part of the man. He died as well. His vitals were still working, but his Aura disappeared and his soul burnt out. Your Aura is out, however, so the idea was going to be to fuse the two of you while your Aura has been reduced to nothing and seeing if that lack of Aura would allow me to fuse you with a Grimm."

This woman was insane. What reason did she have to do all this? Why did she do these experiments? Why did she take Pyrrha and Mordred and anyone else who had been taken?

"But then they told me your Semblance." Three continued. "Polarity, the control of magnetic force. I've been inspired, now. I've been curious about cyborgs for a while, especially their portrayal in fiction. Robots, AI, cyborgs, they're all displayed as monsters more often than not. Even heroic cyborgs usually have a point with them clinging to their humanity. Otherwise, they are treated as soulless more often than not, and full conversion from cyborg to the removal of fleshy parts into a robot is treated as a bad time always. I'm curious as to how accurate these depictions are, so I made sure to acquire some outdated security robots. They are all programmed to do as I command, and I look forward to seeing at which point you become less than human. Will you hold onto your sense of self even after your brain is attached to an AI loyal to me? Will your entire brain need to be uploaded to digital form for it to work? Will you still be you even after there is no flesh or blood left in your body? Will your humanity erode over time? Will you lose your Aura and soul? I'm curious. You're going to help satisfy my curiosity."

Three babbled on, the speed of her voice much faster than anything Pyrrha had heard come out of a mouth before, and she eventually tune it out. What she had gotten out of the conversation was terrifying enough. She desperately thought of a potential plan of escape, but before she knew it, she was being slammed against a wall.

A metal strap folded out of the wall around her neck, and electricity cackled through it. Three raised Pyrrha's arms, and more metal sections closed around her wrists. A needle struck the back of Pyrrha's shoulder before retracting into the wall, and Three pulled out another machine and placed it in front of Pyrrha's eye.

"That painkiller should keep you too drowsy to use your Semblance." Three said, more to herself than to Pyrrha. "But it'll take time to take enough effect, and I don't want you using your Semblance to try and escape. You overcame the earlier restraining measure, but..."

Pulling out a wire, Three attached the machine in front of Pyrrha to the collar around her neck.

"This should work." She decided. "The collar will detect if you are attempting to use your Semblance, and if it does, this machine will extend the needle. If you do use your Semblance, you will lose your right eye. It will be painful, at any point where you can concentrate enough to use your Semblance."

Pyrrha paled. That...

Three paused for a moment, before tapping the machine a few more times. "It'll also deploy the needle if any of the restrains on you fail. Do not try to escape."

Pyrrha gulped, then nodded.

...Well, at least she had gotten Mordred out. Hopefully. If Three's people had found her, then by now, they would have reported it to her, wouldn't she have?"

Three grabbed the scissors still embedded in Pyrrha's chest, and pulled them out again.

"Let's begin with your injured bits." Three decided, letting Pyrrha bleed. "Your fingers-"

She broke off suddenly. "...The only robotic fingers are attached to the arm. Reprogramming those would take too long..."

Three reached above Pyrrha's left arm, and pulled out some sort of blade attached to the wall.

"This will have to go." She declared, before slamming the blade down, cleaving through muscle and bone to tear off the arm. Pyrrha cried out in pain, and almost used her Semblance on reflex, before the machine in front of her made a humming sound and reminded her of the consequence.

Three reached to the side, pulling open a drawer, and Pyrrha took the moment to look around. The room was small, and with the doors at the back looking like the back doors of an ambulance or truck.

...Which was probably what they were in, Pyrrha realised.

Three pulled out a robotic arm from a box, putting it on Pyrrha's side, and measured it for a moment.

"...Not 'Cute' enough." Three declared. "This arm is bigger than your other arm, and I am told that a necessary aspect to 'Cuteness' is that too big a body part detracts from it. Not to mention the necessity for symmetry, unless the asymmetry is interesting enough, but the one robotic arm would be interesting enough without it being a different size."

Three stepped away, and the arm clung to the wall.

"Still, it is the best I have at the current moment. I can just slim it down later. For now..."

Three punched Pyrrha in the face, and the girl saw her vision jerk to the side. However, she felt no pain at the blow.

...No, that was a lie. There was pain. It was just...

Muffled? Or...

"Painkillers are working well." Three's voice sounded so distant, slower somehow. "In that case, the replacement of internal organs with mechanical replacements begin."

Three's hand reached for Pyrrha's head, guiding her gaze forward, as her other hand pulled out some sort of... Circular...

Buzzsaw, was the word. Pyrrha felt something in her suddenly spike with...

Fear? Worry? Concern? Not a good emotion.

"Stay still." Three ordered, her voice sounding like a whisper echoing through a cave. As she let the buzzsaw hang in place, attached to a metal limb on the wall held in front of Pyrrha, Three reached into another draw at the side. "This mechanical heart will function long enough that..."

She trailed off again.

"Oops. Nearly forgot to ensure your blood keeps flowing."

Three reached above Pyrrha, and started pulling down something she couldn't see. A number of faint pinpricks in her upper shoulder told Pyrrha that something was being put in her, but...

"That should do it." Three declared. "That will cycle your blood around your brain so you don't die if there are complications."

Pyrrha briefly heard the buzzing of the circular saw in front of her, before it became too difficult to keep track of things, for a time. There was a pain in her chest, an even more intense lightness making it hard to even realise she was even thinking, and the passage of time faded away.

Over time, Pyrrha felt some sort of sensation return, as she vaguely heard Three talking about short-term painkillers with high effect as she put a red thing in a jar somewhere. Then, a sudden shrill alarm blared, breaking through the haze in her mind long enough for Pyrrha to hear one of Three's minions talk about-

 **[X] The inability to find their target before she found help, and a recommendation to flee.**  
 **[X] Someone seeking to talk with Three, but not fight them. A... Friend? Of some sort?**  
 **[X] ...No, that was a scream. Something about the colour orange, and then an explosion...**


	52. Big Bad Sister

**[X] Someone seeking to talk with Three, but not fight them. A... Friend? Of some sort?**

Some sort of radio reported, and Pyrrha managed to comprehend a voice talking about someone. Somebody... Looking for Three? But not a bad thing?

In front of Pyrrha, Three's back straightened, and her movements became more...

Fluid. Excited. Something like that.

She turned to Pyrrha, as she pulled a needle out of the draws next to her, and jammed it into the red-haired girls arm.

"That should counteract the painkiller faster." Three noted. "Make you aware of what's happening more. The initial surgery has been a success and I want to move you to the other lab before I play with your brain. But for now..."

Three paused, turning back to Pyrrha.

"On the other hand, I don't want you making me look bad..."

Her hand went back into the drawer, dropping the needle and pulling out a scalpel. She took another step towards Pyrrha, and her arm suddenly blurred towards her throat.

Pyrrha's eyes went wide, and a sudden fear for her life shot through the haze of confusion, bolstered by the shot Three had delivered. Her Semblance went into action, pushing against the scalpel with magnetic force to push it out of Three's hands. Pyrrha watched it fly into the distance, before she heard a click and suddenly _pain_

She screamed, her hands rushing on instinct as her head jerked back. She felt two arms move forward, and one clashed against a restraint while the other reached and touched nothing, and the pain in Pyrrha's eye intensified

It hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it...

She... The vision in her right eye was gone, she couldn't see anything out of it, Three was looking vaguely annoyed in front of her as she reached above Pyrrha's head and she could feel something dripping down her eye and and

Pyrrha felt something, some sort of metal machine, clamp down over the right side of her face, and after a moment, she couldn't feel anything coming from it.

"How bothersome." Three sighed. "I have bits of eye all over my dress now. And I was hoping to look my best, too.

Her eye, her eye, she'd forgotten in her panic and confusion and the machine had read her Semblance and her eye it-

Before she could realise what was happening, Pyrrha felt a pinch at her throat, and tried to look down. The machine clamped over the right side of her head held her in place, and after a moment, Three pulled a scalpel out of Pyrrha's neck, before putting a hand over the cut.

"And... " Three hummed a little song. "There."

Three pulled her hand away, and though Pyrrha could feel a drop of blood down her neck, she couldn't feel the open wound anymore.

She opened her mouth, to ask why. Why Three was doing this, why she had just cut Pyrrha's throat to heal it, why she was here, why any of this was _happening_. But she couldn't bring herself to speak.

No matter how hard she tried, no words would come out.

"It's a makeshift solution." Three said to herself. "Her Aura might heal the scar and displace the fragment left behind. I'll have to operate to remove her vocal cords properly later, but for now, she should be quiet."

A tear rolled down the left side of Pyrrha's face, as she silently sobbed to herself.

Damn it, _damn it_. She couldn't do anything. Three had gone all this to her so casually, and she couldn't do anything to fight back...

Three looked at Pyrrha for a moment in contemplation.

"No, no." She muttered to herself. "'Cute' is supposed to be a happy thing. Tears are too easily associated with sadness, melancholy. Joy sometimes, but your expression isn't suited for that. Tearing out your other eye would be too messy. Perhaps I should remove your tear ducts when I operate to repair the damage on the other eye. It'd be..."

Three trailed off, yawning slightly, before wiping a splash of blood off of her face, and looked over at the door.

"She's here." She noted to herself, as the doors swung open. The light blinded Pyrrha for a moment, as a silhouette stepped into view. Then the doors shut and the light faded, revealing the newcoming.

She looked a lot like Three, Pyrrha noted. In the way her face was constructed, at least. Her hair was whiter, her clothes matching it, and her eyes a different colour, but the face looked so similar. Right down to the marking on her forehead, for the number one.

"Sister." The girl in white asked.

"One." Three breathed, and the girl in one stepped forward.

"I've been looking for you for a while." One continued. "And the others. I found Four not long ago, and a my contacts have passed on that Two is in Vale."

"I've missed you." Three teared up, something someone would expect to see in the heartwarming resolution to a movie or something. Except with more torture happening just out of focus.

One looked back at Pyrrha, and sighed.

"I see that you've kept yourself busy." One noted. Three froze.

"...I-"

"Don't." One interrupted, looking at Pyrrha. "Has anyone been able to link you to this?"

"...Most have been broken to my will." Three admitted. "But there was an escapee who was getting away. A girl with blonde hair who saw me. My people haven't reported that they've found her yet, or that she's gotten away-"

One turned away, pointed an arm towards the back of the truck, and sang. For a moment, she held a note, and as the note died, there was the sound of a great detonation.

Three looked at One for a moment, awestruck. "You-"

"I saw the explosives when I was coming to find you." One dismissed. "Anyone inside the building will be dead by now. If this girl is outside of it, my people will track her down and kill her soon enough. Nobody saw me, and I was last seen in Atlas a few days ago, so nobody has any ideas I'm here."

Pyrrha tried to make a sound. She wasn't sure what sound she wanted to make, only that she wanted to make one. Was it a scream? A whimper? A curse? It was something, but she wasn't able to manage it.

After all this, Mordred was going to be killed anyway?

Was it all for nothing, then?

"I've prepared orders for an airship to arrive at a destination near here in a few days." One continued. "I flew ahead to see you, and I'm glad I did now. I found your Disciple, too."

"You found Octa?" Three asked.

One made a brief disgusted face at the name.

"...I found him." She repeated, not saying his name. "He'll be on the airship that arrives soon. For now..."

Three spoke up as One trailed off. "I have another location nearby. I was hoping to finish preparing my new doll there. It shouldn't take long."

One looked back, at Pyrrha chained up on the wall.

"This will be troublesome if people realise who she is." One pointed out. "It'd be smarter to just kill her and leave her in the rubble."

Pyrrha closed her eye, feeling the tears fall freely from it.

"But I want to keep her." Three objected. "I've already put the mechanical heart in her. It would be expensive to lose it."

One frowned. "Mechanical- In that case, it would be for the best you did. Leaving evidence like that behind would just raise questions."

Three stepped forward, and hugged her sister.

"Thank you." Three said, sounding almost happy as she squeezed her sister. "I... Thank you."

One briefly played with Three's hair, which had grown to halfway down her back in the time since Pyrrha had last paid attention to it.

"It's growing faster." One noted. "Your trait has been growing more, then?"

Three paused, then suddenly backed away.

"I forgot." She spoke up, though quieter than before. "Your growing trait. Your senses grow more sensitive over time. I hope I didn't cause you any pain there, One."

"Nothing I can't manage." One replied. "People who aren't aware of it meet with me often, I have to be used to dealing with it."

Pyrrha tried to struggle at her restraints for a moment, one arm flailing wildly against it while the other-

...Oh. Phantom limb syndrome. She still expected the arm to be there, on some level, so she could feel it move to a degree, even though.

Her sobbing intensified, for a moment.

What was everyone going to think after this? The managers of the tournament had never really cared about her too much, but they were still fond of her. Would they feel guilty over losing her? The people she had fought, some of them had given the token niceties. How many of them would regret not knowing what happened to her?

What would her mother feel when she found out?

...Everyone had always expected so much of her, and now she was going to be carted away, and she'd never see them again.

Some great Huntress she turned out to be.

Pyrrha sobbed silently a bit more, and for a time, she couldn't bring herself to care anymore. She was powerless here. She couldn't do anything. Trying had just gotten her...

Three turned to look at her after a time, Pyrrha vaguely recognised. She also vaguely recognised a needle poking into her arm. But after that, everything went black.

* * *

There was silence for a moment, as the old man and young woman looked at the paper they were writing on.

"...You seem upset." The old man noted.

The girl nodded. "...I am, I suppose."

"I understand." The older man sighed. "It's... Hard. Not to interfere, when you think you can change something for the better."

"How do you handle it?" The girl asked. "You've been doing this for so long, you have to have a way of handling it."

The old man took a moment to think about it.

"You could have interfered." He noted. "It would have been easy. A potential branch was there, if you intervened. But what would that have meant?"

"I could have saved Pyrrha?" The girl asked. "I could have stopped Three?"

The old man shook his head.

"I'm afraid actually killing an Intoner is beyond us." He noted. "Even both of us combined. But perhaps you could have escaped with Pyrrha, right under Three's nose. What would that have led to?"

"...Three would see me." The young woman noted. "And know that there's someone acting against her, and able to watch her closely enough."

"And then we have One." The old man continued for her. "Who is paranoid enough that any such action would have led to her dismantling the structure of Mistral looking for the one responsible. Our allies could be found out and taken care out, people would likely die or be broken... All to save one girl."

"...I still don't like it." The girl moped.

"That, I can't help you with." The old man nodded. "There's only two things you can focus on. First, consider the consequences. I've made enough mistakes in my life by jumping at the first chance, and we both know what that led to in the past."

His gaze turned to the wall for a moment, as he relived the memory. The girl left him to his thoughts for a minute, before drawing his attention again.

"...And the second thing?" She asked.

"We can think of the future." The man said. "And how we can change things so soon. It won't be long before I'll be able to clean up my mistakes, and if you view this as one, consider the pieces as they stand."

The girl sat, deep in thought for a moment.

"People are going to notice." She mused. "And even if I haven't been to Mistral myself, considering who her father is, I would assume that one of your friends has taken Mordred out of One's reach?"

The old man nodded.

"In which case, she may suspect what happened to Pyrrha." The girl continued. "And if she does, her teammates will know before long. Once One makes her move, the location of the Intoners will be common knowledge. Mordred seems rebellious enough to respond to Three's presence the moment she knows about it, and even if our people won't make a move..."

She looked over to the side, where several symbols were attached to a wall as posters. The White Fang crest, a purple emblem resembling a circle with a vertical eye in the middle, and an ominous black sigil.

There was no need to talk about what they represented.

"...Do you really think she's going to make a move soon?" The girl asked.

"I find it likely." The man responded. "Which would mean that there's enough blatant force uniting against the Intoners soon enough that they could justifiably think that another mysterious attacker belonged to one of those factions."

The girl looked up at him.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" She asked.

The old man smiled. "Let's follow Miss Xiao Long's path for now. Even if she's not in the thick of things in the next few months, keeping tabs on her progression would be necessary to properly understand what is happening with her."

The girl nodded, picking up the recent recordings and putting them in a folder in the corner. The old man looked over her shoulder as she did so, and picked it up, moving it under some other folders.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"You're filing it after Miss Xiao Long met One." The old man noted. "This happened before then."

"But if you file it like that, it doesn't make sense." She objected. "You go from Yang looking for Ruby to something completely unrelated."

"It'll be more difficult to find these records if they're out of order." The man pointed out.

The woman took a moment to consider it. "...I can manage."

"If you say so." The man nodded, putting everything back.

The girl nodded to herself, and opened up another, clear file, to begin recording the next steps in Yang's journey.

 **Ugh, there's so much nothing... Skip ahead, skip ahead...**

 **Lets do it like this. A lot of time is going to pass, and there's some thing s Yang is going to do no matter what. Overtrain herself to compensate for nearly dying against Dito, watch the news, go to school, interact with Ruby. In the month long period the next record should cover, what else does she do?**

 **[X] Hang out with Two, Cent and the orphans a lot. Two kept inviting her over and the orphans seemed to enjoy her visits.  
** **[X] Trained the magic thingy with Qrow. He was rarely around, but walked her through the next step when he was.  
** **[X] Miltia had been upset last Yang saw her, and the yellow haired girl thought she should talk to Miltia about it.**


	53. My Friend of Misery

**[X] Miltia had been upset last Yang saw her, and the yellow haired girl thought she should talk to Miltia about it.**

There were a lot of requirements to being a good Hunter. Skill. Weapon use. Semblance use. Strength. Speed. But this varied greatly, from Hunter to Hunter. Everyone had a different Semblance, and not everyone relied on them heavily. Almost everyone used a weapon differently, and to different degrees. Some people had to focus in some areas to compensate for a natural weakness in others.

But there was one aspect to being a Hunter that was universal.

Aura. The strength of the soul. All Hunters had to have a good management of it. Even those with a weak Aura had to learn how to manage it well, in order to really progress through life as a Hunter.

There were two different aspects to using ones Aura. It's strength, and how it was used.

The first was self explanatory. The strength of ones Aura is their natural talent. It was the equivalent of muscle mass, really. When someone strains their Aura, it repairs itself. While it repairs itself, it becomes ever so slightly stronger.

Naturally, like muscles, going too far has diminishing results. If you tried to go too far, your Aura breaks and leaves you defenceless, and it takes way too long to naturally regenerate for it to be efficient for training it up.

The second aspect of Aura, the use of it, was more complex. Signal had a lot of lessons regarding Aura exercises, training your control over your Aura. With enough of that, even an unnaturally low amount of Aura could take a big hit with minimal damage. It was why bracing yourself for a hit was so much more effective when you had Aura as opposed to otherwise. Because you were able to focus on the incoming hit, not as much Aura was expended to nullify it.

Yang had been drilled on these lessons a lot, and it had been something she'd been thinking about a lot recently.

She needed to be stronger. Her fight with Dito had taught her that. When it came down to it, someone like him had been able to tear through her so easily. That meant she wasn't strong enough.

Ruby had needed her, and she'd looked so weak in front of her. She needed to be stronger, so her little sister could rely on her.

She'd been doing her best. There was a training gym in town that was effective enough, if only for the variety in how she could train. The moving training dummies programmed to shoot at her until her Aura fell low enough. Good for training to dodge while hitting, fighting a lot, all sorts of things.

But she needed more than that. She couldn't spend all her time in the middle of town, not when it would worry people. So most of her training ended up being by herself, mostly so her father wouldn't worry too much.

Though, punching training dummies was only effective to a certain degree. It helped her hit harder, made her a bit stronger. It wasn't good enough. She needed to learn to fight better. Fight actively. Take hits as good as deal them, and keep going.

Combat training wasn't something she could do on her own with a training dummy, even if she tied a broom to it so it hit back. So Aura exercises it was.

It was... Somewhat late, when Yang walked into the forest. The sun was going down. Her father and sister knew she was going to train a bit, so they shouldn't have to worry too much. It only took a bit of time, to get to the location she was going to.

A small river flowed through the forest, a few minutes walk from Yang's home, and she only had to follow it for a few minutes more to find an area where it was deep enough that she could stand at the bottom and be submerged.

One of the Aura exercises she had heard about, but never really practised herself, was staying underwater. With the right application, you could use it to keep the water out of your lungs and find oxygen in the liquid.

It was a high level practises, so she'd likely not be able to manage it, but it was a goal to aim for. But before she did that, she wanted to practice something else.

A few minutes more from that place, Yang came to a waterfall. It wasn't a big one, the water barely dropping three metres, but there was a lot of water flowing down. Enough that if you positioned yourself under the rocks right, it'd be hard to breath. Combine that with the cold water making it hard to concentrate, it'd be an effective way of getting use to the trick of it, before she started walking underwater.

But that wasn't enough. So, Yang thought, she'd have something else to do.

Taking a breath, her Aura flared, burning up. Flames flew off her recently shortened hair- And it still stung, thinking about how Dito had cut it short just to demonstrate how powerless she was- And Yang moved towards the waterfall.

Keeping her breath even as the water made it hard to breath, staving off the cold, and trying to maintain her flames even as the water douses her out.

See if it did her any good.

* * *

It was weird, just going to school again after the month she had. It was more...

Well, it felt weird. Everyone was talking about the trips they had been on outside the kingdoms. Some students were talking rather excitedly, telling stories about their trips and how cool the things they had done were. Others seemed kinda quiet, contemplative. Probably the ones who had had experiences more like what Yang had, before she had returned.

When Yang went back to Signal, it was a bit weird. It was mostly refresher courses, making sure everyone remembered the work from last year and giving them the chance to adapt. Yang had been a bit surprised that there hadn't been any talks to share experiences, but when she thought about it, that had probable been covered when Yang was still recovering.

Technically, she was still recovering. She carried around a cane still, in case she needed it, and she did occasionally lean on it. Usually after some combat training, when her Aura was low, she'd start feeling a bit of pain and decide to stay on the safe side. She did her best not to rely on it around Ruby, though.

She didn't usually see her father or Uncle Qrow in school. Qrow mostly did combat classes, which were Wednesday and Fridays, and never seemed to be around long beyond that. Since losing his arm, he hadn't shown up at all, though. Yang heard a substitute was taking care of his classes until he got a replacement arm and got used to it.

Her father, on the other hand, was still teaching. He taught second year students mostly, so Yang didn't see too much of him, but he had made it a habit of taking over the role of monitoring the cafeteria at lunch, and would always confirm that Yang and Ruby were in the room before he ate.

Yang...

Might have gotten overprotective, really. Sat around her at lunch, ate with her, kept an eye on her, and didn't really pay attention to anyone else. But she needed to be there for Ruby. Look after her sister. Keep her safe.

She wasn't going to fail again. She didn't want to leave her sister alone and have something bad happen again.

* * *

It wasn't long before Qrow finally turned up again by inviting himself to dinner. He hadn't gotten a functional prosthetic limb yet, but he was doing the best he could, judging by the wooden arm with a hook on the end.

It was a bit late, when dinner finally came.

"So." Qrow began, as he picked at his vegetables like a child not wanting to eat his greens. "How have things been?"

"Alright." Yang replied, putting down her steak for a moment. "I mean, at first everyone was kinda sad, but everyone's moods _Rose_ before long."

Ruby looked up at Yang, and down to beans, then back up at Yang, as if contemplating where to aim for the most comical effect.

"Huh." Qrow noted, looking up. "Funny, nobody answered me."

"I can try a different pun, if that would help." Taiyang grinned.

"Hey Ruby. "Qrow spoke up a bit more. "Isn't it funny how both your father and sister have gone mute mysteriously?"

"It's strange." Ruby agreed.

"Hey Ruby, if you don't want me taking all your ice cream after dinner, say something."

Ruby's eye twitched, but she did her absolute best to ignore Yang.

Qrow nodded. "We'll all steal Ruby's ice cream." He agreed.

"Uncle!" She objected. "You're supposed to stick up for me."

"Well, you obviously don't want it..." Taiyang pointed out.

Ruby suddenly noticed something about her corn that was apparently _very_ interesting, giving how much she stared at it.

"So, anyone seen the news?" Qrow asked.

"Not recently." Yang replied. "I've been busy recently, with..."

...She didn't want to draw attention to how much she'd been training recently. Hell, she'd been making sure to bring her Aura down to at least half so that it's constantly regenerating and strengthening, at this point, and it would be nice if people didn't notice that.

"...Stuff." She shrugged.

"Well, there's a bit doing down in Atlas." Qrow noted. "There's been a group pushing to expand borders, establish a few new settlements."

Taiyang raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"There's been a bit of backlash, because it's failed every time people have tried, but the push is getting momentum. Saying that they know enough about Grimm that they could manage it. Named a few big areas they think they need to hit to drive them off for long enough to get set."

"Really?" Ruby asked. "But wouldn't that mean trying to hit places with, like, the crazy strong Grimm?"

Qrow nodded. "Yeah. Grimm as old as your dad's sense of fashion."

"Or as old as Qrow looks." Taiyang countered.

Yang chuckled a bit.

"It's probably not gonna go through." Qrow continued. "A lot of support from minor groups, but the Atlas military higher-ups are fairly against it. Unless we see Schnee money thrown around, it probably won't lead to anything. Too much at risk."

Ruby sighed.

"Speaking of Schnee." Taiyang spoke up. "It's been a while since there was anything from the White Fang. Like, Jacques made his declaration of war, and then they go silent."

"I heard there were some heavy hits up in Atlas." Qrow noted. "And the groups down here had more pressure put on them. Whatever Jacques did seems to have hit them hard enough that they've stopped to lick their wounds."

There were nods from around the table.

"...Yeah, I'm just gonna be blunt." Qrow decided ."I'm no good with small talk. How is everyone coping?"

Yang froze, as she looked over at him. She took a moment to answer.

"...Everyone's doing alright, I think." She claimed. "How about you?"

Qrow shrugged, showing off his hook hand in the process.

"There's a joke I wanna make here." He noted. "But I feel like it's inappropriate round kids your age."

"Kids my age never get the fun stuff." Yang complained.

Taiyang smiled. "Oh, really? And I suppose that means that I was imagining it when I gave you permission to go to a nightclub."

"In the middle of the day so I can talk to Miltia." Yang countered.

"Excuses." Taiyang waved off. "Back in my day, I didn't get to go to nightclubs at all. For entertainment, kids would look over each others homework for spelling errors. And then we're walk five miles in the snow to pass them to the next person, uphill both ways. And if we didn't get home by three in the afternoon, we didn't get our half hour of television. Kids these days."

Yang finished up her meal, before standing up.

"Thanks for dinner." She said. "I'm going for a quick jog."

"This late?" Qrow asked.

"Just heading up to the waterfall and back." She noted. "Won't be long."

"Bye!" Ruby called, as she ran out the front door.

* * *

It was by noon, when Yang stopped by the apartment complex Miltia was staying in. It didn't take long to remember which room she was in, and Yang made her way there before long.

There was about three seconds from Yang knocking on the door to the door opening, and Miltia looked back at her, with a red dress on.

"What do you want?" She asked.

Yang didn't bother trying to smile.

"You didn't seem too well off, last time we talked." She said. "I thought I'd come and check in on you, see how you're holding up."

Miltia sighed. "Come in."

She stepped aside, and went to sit on the couch. There was a show on the television, but it was currently in ads, saying something about...

...Schnee brand pet shops? When did that become a thing?

"Why are you even bothering with me?" Miltia asked. "You barely even know me. Wouldn't you rather spend time with your sister?"

"...Yeah." Yang admitted. "But I already have enough I'm feeling bad over. Knowing that you got beat up as much as you did because I invited you, and haven't gotten the same closure I have? I'd have to be a right bitch to not care about that."

Miltia looked towards her, before looking down.

"...How's Melanie?" Yang asked.

"Terrible." Miltia replied. "Last time I saw her, she hadn't heard the song in a while, so she started lashing out when I tried to talk to her. Demanded to see Two or Five. And then they did call in Two and she stopped even noticing I was there."

...Ouch.

"I'm sorry." Yang said.

"Why?" Miltia asked. "You didn't do anything."

"Doesn't mean it sounds like your situation isn't terrible." Yang noted. "You said she was the one you admired, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Miltia replied. "Why wouldn't I? I'm the terrible sister."

"You're not terrible-" Yang tried to assure her, before Miltia looked up at her with sad eyes.

"She went and got herself addicted to Five's song." Miltia noted. "Didn't tell me. Didn't bother saying goodbye when she left with you, before she disappeared with Five. Didn't contact me while she was gone. I tried to talk to her in Mountain Glenn and she beat me down like I was just a random stranger."

...That sounded bad. Yang couldn't blame Miltia for being in a bad mood if that's the kind of thoughts she's been alone with.

"You're not terrible." Yang interrupted. "That doesn't mean there's anything bad with you, that just means that Five messed her up bad."

"I... I don't think I want to believe that." Miltia sighed. "How would you feel if your sister was like mine? Would you rather think your sister, strong willed as she is, was broken down to the point where she would alternate between attacking you and overlooking you? Or would you prefer if she just hated you?"

Yang's breath caught in her throat, as the mental image came to her.

...No, she wouldn't accept it. She wouldn't accept the idea of Ruby being broken down or hating here. She refused to accept something bad like that happening.

She refused to let it happen.

...And she had no real way of making Miltia feel better, did she? She had no idea _what_ to say.

But maybe she could try action instead?

 **[X] Yang should try offering Miltia a distraction. The two of them should rent out a room in the training gym so they can punch each other for a while, take their minds of things.**  
 **[X] Yang should help Miltia like she was helping herself. Get stronger, feel better. Try sneaking into the Emerald Forest and get stronger by fighting Grimm for as long as they can.**


	54. A Walk in the Black Forest

**[X] Yang should help Miltia like she was helping herself. Get stronger, feel better. Try sneaking into the Emerald Forest and get stronger by fighting Grimm for as long as they can.**

The two girls looked down down at the forest, watching small black movements scattered here and there through the trees at the bottom of the cliff. The spot they had found was one where the cliff was by a large tree that you could climb up or down easily enough. It was odd, how it was placed where it was when all the other trees were rather small. Almost as if someone had predicted that people were going to sneak in and out, and intentionally left a way in where the Grimm are at their weakest, or where the teachers of Beacon cleared through frequently.

"So what's the plan, then?" Miltia asked.

"We go in." Yang said. "We head towards... The north. Find strong stuff. Punch it. Fight until we can't anymore, then leave."

"Do you have enough ammo?" She asked.

Yang shrugged. "Not as much as I'd like. Dad didn't want me taking too much, just enough to get out of a fight if I'm attacked. Don't want to use it too much anyway, I'd prefer to get my hands dirty for now."

Miltia nodded, then looked forward and jumped. Her heel lodged into the tree, and she pivoted on the spot quickly, spinning herself downwards and let herself fall down, occasionally stabbing her heel back into the tree to slow her descent. Yang watched her fall for a moment, then threw down the cane she had been carrying around and followed her, landing on a tree branch, and then jumping from that branch to the next on her way down.

Yang hit the ground a minute after Miltia, and brushed herself off as she turned towards her companion.

"Let's go, then." She said. Miltia nodded, and followed her lead.

The forest was alive, Yang noted. There was the sound of insects flying and birds chirping. A crow flew over her head, and Yang swatted away a mosquito floating near her head. She walked forward a bit, breaking a few crumpled leaves and twigs in the progress.

"Shouldn't we try to be quiet?" Miltia asked.

"Nah." Yang shrugged off. "We're looking for a fight anyway, right? Let the Grimm hear us. Let them come."

She took another step forward, then turned to the side. There was a growl in the distance, and Yang darted towards it. She pushed off against a tree to force herself to the side as she ran forward, approaching the Beowulf in a few seconds. She rushed past it before she could react, and backhanded its skull, forcing it to the ground.

The Beowulf fell, and Yang grabbed another tree, using it t spin around while keeping her momentum while she punched down through its stomach.

The Beowulf faded away, and Miltia stepped out a moment later.

"You forgot your stick." She said, throwing the cane at Yang. The yellow haired girl caught it as it came towards her, and nodded.

"Kinda forget its there when I don't need it." Yang mused. "Thanks."

Miltia didn't respond, walking north of the cliff face and tall tree.

"Stronger Grimm should be up this way." Yang nodded, walking ahead after a moment. Or at least more of them, if-"

There was a roar from above, and another Beowulf fell from a tree. Miltia flipped while keeping her pace, using its own momentum to cut it in half. She kept her pace without acknowledging it, and kept walking.

...Okay, that was pretty cool, Yang admitted.

They kept walking for a while, occasionally hitting a Beowulf, and at one point an Ursa, before they came to a dark cave.

"Spooky." Miltia noted.

"Probably something in there." Yang noted. "Come on, follow me."

She stepped towards the cave, flaring her flaming Aura, and took a moment to consider.

In hindsight, maybe lowering her Aura intentionally was a mistake. She'd let it recover while travelling with Mitlia, so she was at sixtyish percent rather than at half, but...

Well, no matter. It was fine. She needed to get better at a fight anyway, having more reason to dodge would help with that.

Throwing her cane to the side and stepping into the darkness, Yang allowed her Aura to burn up, focusing more on expanding the flames and their light than she did keeping the flames strong.

There was a glimmer of light reflecting of a white bone-like shell, and then an eruption of movement. Dozens of rocks fell from the roof of the cave and a glowing stinger-like shape became visible, and a giant scorpion swept forward, lunging at Yang.

The burning girl jumped back, flipping out of the cave and noting Miltia to the left, before changing direction and firing Ember Celica to blast herself to the right as the beast came out.

The scorpion Grimm, the Death Stalker, turned to watch Yang, chirping to itself. The girl on fire stepped forward, rushing forward to hit it, then ducked under its claws as it tried to pincer her in place.

The Grimm suddenly reared back into the air as Miltia cut at its tail, trying to cut at a gap in the bone plating on it. There was a flash of blood, but the Grimm swept its tail around, striking Miltia in the stomach.

As she flew off, Yang punched upwards, striking at the Death Stalker. Her fist stung as she hit up and failed to damage its plating, but she was able to force it even higher upwards, allowing her a moment to grab at its leg. As the Death Stalker fell, Yang ran out from under it, pulling its leg off balance. The gap in the plating showed a visible gap at the point of the leg, and Yang jumped up, quickly kicking at it. The Deathstalker screamed, but wasn't overly injured. It flailed its leg, throwing Yang off, and Yang briefly saw her flames sticking to it before she flew into the cave and struck the pile of rocks within.

She groaned, and put her hand on top of a rock to prop herself upwards, boosting herself up. She looked back towards the Death Stalker, in time to watch Miltia cut at the burning bone plate on the Death Stalkers leg, slicing through it slightly and exposing more of its pitch black flesh.

The Death Stalker turned to look at Miltia and strike with its claws, and Yang rushed in while it was doing so, reeling back her fist and striking the side of the Death Stalker as hard as she could. At the moment of impact, she fired Ember Celica again, and the Death Stalker rocked to the side a moment. Even with armour plating, enough brute force would do enough blunt trauma that it'd hurt regardless. She pulled back another fist, getting ready to repeat the process, when she saw the stinging coming at her and changed track to grab it instead.

She pulled at the stinger, gripping the base of it where it met the tail proper. The tail wasn't armoured, for some reason, so it'd be the easiest place to hurt. She squeezed down, trying to rip it off, and the Death Stalker slammed her into the ground. She coughed, but forced herself to hold on.

Forget the pain. She needed to learn how to work through it. Ripping herself down as the Death Stalker lifted her up, Yang fired Ember Celica upwards while her hands were wrapped around the tail, forcing her downwards and into the ground. With the tail still rising, the stinger was ripped off, and the Death Stalker screamed.

Yang smiled, until the Death Stalker slammed its tail into her again and smashed her into the ground, she unsteadily got to her feet, only for the pincer to grab her side and start squeezing.

Yang groaned, as she struggled against the Death Stalker's grasp. She tried to pry herself out, and the Death Stalker tightened its grip, while smashing her into Miltia.

Gritting her teeth, Yang focused harder.

Damn it. She wasn't strong enough. She needed to...

She fired at the pieces of the pincer closest to her, catching herself in her blast in the process, and the Death Stalker raised its other claw, pinning her again in a way that caught her arms as well.

Miltia leaped forward, slashing near the claw, before its tail forced her down again. Nothing.

Damn it, why wasn't she _strong enough!_

Yang strained to pull her arms away, grinding them against the tighter parts of the claws in the process and damaging her Aura. She fired at herself with Ember Celica a few more times, and the Death Stalker slammed her into Miltia. Her Aura was taking damage, meaning her Semblance was getting stronger, making her Aura stronger.

...Time to try something.

Miltia whipped around the claw and moved to stab her heel into the Death Stalker's eye. The other claw batted her away, and the Death Stalker moved to trample her.

Yang closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, working on building up her flames again. The fire was a consequence of her Aura. So it made sense she could burn up more as she got hurt more, right?

She let out a shout as she unleashed a burst of flames with enough burn the bone plating over the claws. The Death Stalker screeched and shook its claw, and Miltia took the moment bought for her, dashing at the Death Stalker and cutting at the weakened plating. It continued to screech, and Yang's struggle finally bore fruit, a she forced the claws open enough to slip out from it's claws.

Miltia grabbed her hand and pulled her away, dashing into the trees. The Death Stalker was shaking its claw in pain, but looked towards them after a moment.

"Let's go." Miltia panted. "My Aura's low, and you-"

"-Are gonna _kill that thing_." Yang concluded.

She hadn't been strong enough for it until now, and her Aura was way too low, but she was going to _finish this_. She wasn't going to let herself be _thrown around anymore._

"What do you think we can do?" Miltia asked. "We're not strong enough to deal with-"

There was the sound of trees snapping, as the Death Stalker ran through the forest. Turning towards it for a moment, Yang saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of he eye, and saw a pack of Beowulfs stalking towards the fight.

"So many of them..." Miltia noted, gulping.

Yang looked over it. A lot of threats. The Death Stalker was a stronger type of Grimm, not enough that she could take care of it on her own. It was more like the sort of thing expected to be fought be a group of Beacon students.

But Ruby had already been threatened by someone _so much stronger._ How was Yang meant to protect her if she ran from this?

"Take care of the Beowulfs." Yang said, as she ran for the Death Stalker. Miltia looked back and gave a cry of shock, but Yang ignored her, jumping to a tree and bouncing off of them. She approached the Death Stalker as it derooted another tree, and Yang clung to it for a moment before jumping past it, firing at the Death Stalker in the process.

The giant scorpion turned back to her as the explosion hit her underside, and Yang landed at the small clearing in front of the cave, by the cane she had dropped in front of it. She picked it up as she regained her footing, and fired at the Death Stalker again. It raised its claw to shield its eyes, as Yang fired again behind her to boost herself towards it, and as it lowered its claw, she threw the cane.

The cane impaled itself on the Grimm's eye, and the Death Stalker screamed as it reached for the cane and pulled it out. It's grip slipped on the small cane, and Yang reached it before the Grimm could remove it, pushing it further in.

Jerking in pain, the Grimm knocked the cane upwards, ripping it out while ripping out its eye and damaging the flesh beneath it. It threw Yang and the cane away, and she gasped as her Aura fell even further.

She heard the giant scorpion scuttling towards her, and punched the ground while firing to propel herself upwards. She flew over the Grimm and dodged the tail slamming into her, while keeping the cane in hand. She landed behind it, just out of reach of its tail, and turned to see how Miltia was doing.

She stood over the vanishing body of another Beowulf, but then kicked her boot up to jump around an Ursa.

When did the Ursa get here?

Miltia quickly decapitated the bear, before jumping over a Boarbatusk and kicking it downwards. More Grimm converged on her, and Yang rushed over to her, firing around her to buy some room.

"There's so many." Yang noted. "You okay?"

"We should run." Miltia replied. "I've got, like, one hit left in me-"

The Death Stalker ran through the trees again, striking its claws upwards to knock the trees forward, into Yang and Miltia. Yang pushed her aside, and punched the tree while firing Ember Celica, forcing the tree up and knocking it upwards, allowing her more time to flip and kick it to the side.

Another Ursa converged on the pair, and Yang smashed its skull before turning back to the Death Stalker. It stumbled for a moment, reaching for its injured eye, and Yang glared.

"I'm finishing this." She declared.

She grabbed the nearby unrooted tree, and lifted it up. Bringing it down again quickly, she smashed a log out of the rest of the tree, and flared up her Aura again, setting both it and her cane on fire. She threw the log at the Death Stalker, which batted it away, as she again ran at it.

The claws reached out to catch her, but as it closed down on her, she stabbed it in the hole where one of its eyes used to be, twisting in and snapping off the end of the burning cane to get it stuck in their. The Death Stalker screeched, threw Yang to the ground, and ran. Yang stood as it fled, chasing after it, but it returned to its cave and struck the roof of it, causing a cave in.

...She hadn't killed it. She'd...

...She'd forced it to flee. She won. _She won_. She didn't _fail_ to kill it. _She won_.

Repeating her _lack of failure_ to herself, Yang turned back to Militia, who was fighting even more Ursa's and Beowulf's at this point. Yang rushed to help her, but the girl dropped to the floor and spun on her elbow, flipping her legs around like a blender for a moment as scattered, dissolving Grimm parts scattered in every direction.

She stood up, looked around, and confirmed a lack of Grimm presence.

"...Heh." She said to herself. "I killed them all. S-So many..."

She laughed to herself, apparently caught in the adrenaline rush.

Well at least she seemed happy.

"Let's head back." Yang suggested. "I'm kinda low on Aura, and-"

She took a step forward, and cried out as her leg was suddenly in pain. Miltia looked over at her, and Yang clutched at the source of the pain. The scar on her leg where Dito stabbed her.

...Oh no. She used too much, the wounds were acting up again. Why were those still hurting? It's been weeks since she got the wounds, they should have healed by now. Why did the pain flare up whenever she used too much Aura?

She clutched at her stomach as she suddenly re-felt the pain of being stabbed in the chest, and she groaned.

"Hey?" Miltia asked. "You okay?"

"Just _peachy_." Yang spat, cursing herself. She was stronger than this. She _needed to be stronger than this._

Standing up and ignoring the pain, she forced herself to walk, stumbling forward. Miltia looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to think.

"...Hey." Yang pointed out. "We both got in fights and did cool things. But I'm all messed up and you're just fine."

Miltia blinked, and then smiled.

"Cool." She mused. "I did better than you, did I? Certainly beat more than you."

"I drove off the Death Stalker!" Yang objected.

"How many Death Stalkers were there?" Miltia asked, giggling slightly.

"You suck." Yang muttered. "Anyway, let's get back to..."

She trailed off for a bit.

"...Can I hang out at your place for a bit?" Yang asked. "Just until my Aura comes back a bit and I don't need to explain myself."

Miltia nodded. "Do you need a-"

"I'm fine." Yang brushed her off. "...I'll need to find a new cane, but I'm fine."

Miltia nodded, and the two walked back, for a time.

"...Yang?" Miltia asked. "I just... Thanks. For trying to make me feel better."

"No problem." Yang groaned. "It's easy to let people bask in my glow, and its usually all I need to do."

Miltia giggled.

 **Two weeks later, and the Intoner group would be leaving for Atlas. Naturally, during this period, in addition to her work in other areas, Yang would visit Two to see her again. During one of these visits-**

 **[X] The orphan girl and the Undine act up a bit.**  
 **[X] Coco and Velvet drop by for their hit of the song.**  
 **[X] Roman and Neo were there, discussing possible ways to not have to go to Atlas.**


	55. Thieves Like Us

[X] Roman and Neo were there, discussing possible ways to not have to go to Atlas.

"Are you alright, Yang?" Ruby asked, as the older sister stopped at the door.

"I'm fine." Yang replied. "Why?"

"You've been walking kinda stiff." Ruby said, frowning. "Did you hurt your leg?"

Yang looked down, hiding her face from view so Ruby couldn't see her concerned expression.

...Her scarred leg had been hurting ever since the trip with Miltia. She thought she'd hid it better, but Ruby must have noticed something after all.

"I'm fine." Yang brushed off, smiling. "And look, I know you don't want any leg puns, you can't stand it-"

Ruby groaned.

"-But come on, you gotta hand it to me-"

Her father's voice suddenly shouted through the house. "Too fast a jump from leg to limbs in general. Find a smoother pace!"

"No wonder Uncle Qrow keeps disappearing." Ruby muttered under her breath. "Can we... It's my birthday in like a month, can we have a birthday month pun stoppage?"

"You realise that'll mean that dad and I both get a month where everyone has to talk in puns leading up to our birthdays, right?" Yang asked.

Ruby paled, then shook her head. "No, no, getting distracted. Yang, seriously, your leg-"

Damn it. She hadn't gotten distracted enough.

"I just sparred with Miltia earlier." Yang explained. "Strained my Aura a bit, hit my leg bad. Stings a bit, but its fine."

"Maybe you should stay the night." Ruby suggested. "I mean, if your Aura got lowered and your legs bad, then maybe you don't need to go-"

"It's just walk." Yang assured her. "I'll be back before you know it, don't worry. Just going for a walk up to the old water fall and back."

Ruby sighed, then nodded. "...Yeah, fine."

"Go work on your weapon a bit." Yang suggested. "I'm sure your darling is waiting for you."

Ruby froze. "You heard that..." She wheezed, panic in her eyes.

"I was going to tweak Ember Celica." Yang admitted. "You were audibly drooling over one of your idea."

"No I wasn't!" Ruby objected. "I haven't done that since-"

Her face went red, and she looked away.

"F-Forget I said that..." She whispered. "It's just a pretty design, nothing-"

Yang nodded. "Uh huh. Sure."

"But- You see- Shut up you're the worst…"

"Love you too, sis." Yang laughed. "You're gonna have to show me his weapon design of yours one day so I can see the appeal, though."

Ruby nodded, muttering something inaudible as she gave Yang a hug. The older girl winced as Ruby accidentally squeezed her stomach just wrong and put pressure on the stomach pain, but she managed to bite her tongue before she reacted out loud and calmed her face before Ruby could see it.

"I'll be back before long." Yang assured her. "Hey, did you ever get around to looking through those gauntlets I got on my trip?"

"The harpoon ones?" Ruby asked. "Yeah, those were interesting. It managed to compress down the..."

She trailed off.

"...You're going to make fun of me again if I use big words am I?"

"Oh, totally." Yang promised.

Ruby sighed again. "Not if I make fun of you first. Small gun bullet tunnel made small and work well before bullet big, change little and bullet shoot harder. Maybe slower, but harder."

"Well, you were thinking about a sniper, weren't you?" Yang asked. "Might not be too bad."

Ruby nodded. "I'm going to make the best weapon ever-"

"-And then probably marry it." Yang interrupted.

Ruby went red again. "I'm not talking to you anymore." She decided, disentangling from her hug to walk to the weapon room.

Yang waited until Ruby disappeared behind a door, and let out a breath. She clutched her stomach slightly and winced.

No, no, it was fine. She'll just go sit under the waterfall for a bit, be back before long, and it'd be fine.

She'd be fine.

* * *

It became a sort of pattern, as the weeks went on. Yang would go to school, train when she had more time, go under the waterfall. Occasionally tweak Ember Celica. There was a few new weapon part shipments, some minor upgrades she managed to made. A more reliable firing mechanism, more efficient shifting parts. Not too useful with Yang, since her weapons main transformation was from storage to usage mode, but it being slightly faster and able to work more often without wearing down the parts was good.

Ruby also spent time in the weapon room. A lot. Most of her time, really. She really wanted to work on her weapon, apparently. Qrow even dropped in from time to time with practice scythes for her to play with, test around to see what worked best for her.

Yang watched her for a moment, as Qrow showed her how to use a few different ones. There was a difference between one with a curved handle and one with a straight handle, as subtle as it was. Or maybe Yang just couldn't tell the difference.

"Try this one." Qrow advised, throwing her one with a smaller blade. "It's easier to manoeuvre. Blade's double-sided, meaning you can jab. Here, like this-"

Qrow twirled it around, sweeping it like a normal scythe, and then twirling it around and-

 _stabbed forward, breaking Yang's Aura and impaling her stomach. She doubled over in pain, as Dito-_

"Yang?" Ruby asked, looking at her as she suddenly backed away. Qrow looked over as well, as Yang's breathing calmed.

"...On second thought, maybe not this one." Qrow decided, putting the scythe to the side. Ruby looked over at it, and seemed to come to the same realisation, judging by how her eyes widened.

"No, it's fine." Yang noted. "Just in a bad mood, I guess. I'm going to go for a walk, clear my head a bit."

"If you-"

"Don't worry about it, Ruby." Yang insisted. "Keep seeing what works and what doesn't. Have fun. I'll be back before long."

She walked off, ignoring the silence behind her, trying to convince herself that Ruby wouldn't worry about her.

* * *

Yang took a breath, and knocked on the door to the building Two was living in. There was movement inside, and then a whisper by the door.

"Open it." A voice whispered, low enough that Yang had to strain to hear it.

"You open it." Replied- Was that Roman?

"I keep breaking it." The voice whispered, confirming the speaker as Two. "You open it."

"Do I look like I'm in favour of free labour?" Roman asked.

"Fine." Two finally whispered.

Slowly, the door knob opened slowly, almost painfully slow. It slid open for a while, as Roman and Two came into view, with Two focusing intently on the door as she swung it open. Eventually, she had it open, the door at a ninety degree from where it would be closed, and she smiled.

"Victory!" She declared, throwing her hands above her head in celebration. The door groaned as the doorknob was ripped off, and a chunk of wood with it, and it took a moment for Two to realise why some falling wood chips were landing on her head.

"Congratulations." Roman noted. "Half a second. A new record."

Two looked up as the wood chips bounced off her Aura, shielding her eyes.

"...It cost so much to fix that last time..." She whimpered.

"Did you put the door repair man on speed dial?" Roman asked. "It's probably smart, at this point."

"Hey!" Called a voice from behind the two. Cent stepped into view a moment later.

"Stop making fun of Two." He demanded. "That's _my_ job. It's, like, eighty seven percent of why she keeps me around."

"What's the other thirteen percent?" Yang asked.

"One percent for every inch of-"

Two dropped the doorknob and jumped at him, putting her hand over his mouth. "There are kids nearby!" She hissed.

Cent nodded, and Two didn't move.

"...Are you just going to stand here?" Roman asked. "Neo's already run ahead, so if you had any sweets, they're hers and mine now."

"Thief." Yang jabbed.

"Yes, that is my occupation." The orange haired man nodded. "...I mean, that was. Everything was reduced to a fine for helping with Five and I've been totally legit since then. You can trust me, I'm the most honest person on the planet."

"...You know, the old man at the cane shop did complain about some missing parts when I was there buying some for-"

Roman tapped his cane, which seemed to have a slightly more shiny handle. "No connection can be proven."

Two finally stepped away from Cent, moving her hand. "If- If you keep saying lewd things t-then... I'll move the couch outside and _then_ make you sleep on it!"

"Stepping up the threats, I see." Cent chuckled. "Maybe one day you'll find something you can bring yourself to go through with that'll actually work."

"As much as I enjoy this drama." Roman said, tapping his cane. "I was kinda here on business, beyond getting Neo free ice cream. And I assume blondie wanted something too?"

"I just wanted to talk." Yang said.

"Noted. Now, can you save this little lovers... Flirt-spat? Is that what this is? Remind me never to fall in love if that's what it's like."

"Duly noted." Yang said. "I don't want to think about you having a lover either."

There was the sound of a fridge door creaking open in the distance.

"...Okay, I was joking, but Neo's actually gotten bored and is stealing your food now. I'd check that out." Roman advised. Two nodded, then rushed off. Cent followed, and Roman sighed as he did as well.

Approaching the kitchen, near the table, Yang looked over the shoulders of everyone else who was standing still, and saw a motionless Neo sitting at the table, with three different tubs of ice cream in front of her.

Everyone looked at Neo, and Neo looked back. Then she shattered, fragments of her disappearing as-

"Don't." Roman said, and the fragments came together again and confirmed that, yes, apparently that shattering can be the _start_ of an illusion as well as the end of one.

Neo pouted, before standing up and putting the ice cream away.

"I'm so sorry about her." Roman apologised. "She's a bit of a wild child. Uncontrollable. I have no idea where I went wrong with her."

Neo was very loud when she slammed the fridge door, before pulling out a scroll and texted everyone.

 _Do not believe his lies hes a terrible influence._

"The first time we met was when you tried to rob me blind."

 _It wasn't like I was good at it then!_

"The judge said that wasn't an excuse last time."

Cent offered Yang some popcorn, but she turned it down and she gave it to Two instead.

"Sorry about shorty." Roman continued. "She-"

 _Don't call me short. I'm efficient._

"Sorry, can't hear you from down there!"

 _Not my fault you're all wasting space you skyscrapers._

"I've tried." Roman said, mock-crying. "I read the first page of a book on raising children, but she keeps doing this. I'm at my wits end, I don't care enough to do anything and I'm out of ideas."

"You've had your fun." Yang said. "I wanna talk to Two, so get your thing out of the way already."

Roman sighed. "Women. So busy."

Neo hit him in the back of the head and texted again.

 _I'm so sorry about him. He's a bit of a wild man. Uncontrollable. I have no idea where I went wrong with him._

"Let's get to business, though." Roman agreed. "Two. I understand you were heading up to Atlas soon."

Two nodded. "One's already paid for most of the orphans to head up and see how much room they'll have, but within a few days now."

"And that brings me to why I'm here." Roman continued. "I'm... Not very popular, in Atlas. Don't like the place much. And with you leaving before they find a solution to the whole addictive song thing, I was wondering what our options were."

Two frowned. "...Sorry, but I don't know. One hasn't found anything, she said Three hadn't found anything in her research either. There was a guy here who had unlimited coffee in his cup who had a look with some of his students but we couldn't figure anything out either."

Roman winced. "Not exactly good news. See, Vale's surprisingly forgiving up here, if I wanted to find a job I could. Up in Atlas? The fact that I got charged with anything at any point is going to stay with me. People are gonna know, it'll be a pain finding somewhere to live and a job to pass the bills, I'm basically cutting my options short. I like options. Options are my favourite things."

Two sighed. "...I'm sorry, Roman. I can't stay in Vale, and I can't exactly afford to fly their and back every week or so. My sister needs me. You're going to have to make arrangements."

Torchwick sighed. "See, I was afraid of that. That sister of yours is all trouble, Two. Maybe I'll try going cold turkey for a while..."

Neo pulled out her scroll again.

 _You try that. I'm going with Two. Bye! : D_

"The worst..." Roman sighed, as he stood up. "Well, have fun then."

And with that, he turned and left. Neo shattered a moment later, disappearing.

Two watched them for a moment, before turning to Yang.

"Hey!" She said. "Good to see you! Cent, go check on the kids, I'm going to get Yang some ice cream."

Two skipped to the freezer as Cent stepped out of the room, and she opened it.

"...Only two? Could've sworn we had a third..." Two muttered to herself. "Must've been sleep eating again."

She pulled out one of the tubs, then pulled out a packet full off ice cream cones from the cupboard.

"So." Two said, as she started scooping. "What did you want to talk about?"

 **[X] Two's sister Five, and a bit more about what happened a month or so back, at this point.**  
 **[X] Two's sister's in Atlas, and what she'll be up to when she gets up there.**


	56. Casual Conversations

**[X] Two's sister Five, and a bit more about what happened a month or so back, at this point.**

"I was just wondering." Yang shrugged. "We never got the chance to talk about Mountain Glenn much, did we?"

"I suppose we didn't." Two mused, as she took a scoop out of one tub of ice cream and put it in a tub. "I mean, I asked if you and your sister and dad and bird uncle were okay, but beyond that not much."

Two paused, as she looked at the cones in front of her.

"What flavour did you want?" She asked.

"Chocolate." Yang replied.

"Don't have any." Two said sadly. "Just vanilla and strawberry."

"...I'm going to murder Neo." Yang muttered.

Two blinked. "Huh?"

"I said 'Vanilla please.'" Yang corrected herself. Two nodded, and opened the other tub of ice cream in front of her to get Yang's scoop.

"So, what ended up happening to Five anyway?" Yang asked. "Your sister, One, came in and took her off to Atlas. Did she..."

"I haven't really heard too much about what happened to Five either." Two admitted. "One says she's sorting everything out, though, and I trust her."

Yang paused, and breathed. She knew from experience that Two idolised One. Pushing that would get her nowhere. Even if she wanted to know what was currently happening to Five...

"Well, can we talk a bit about what happened before, then." Yang said. "I didn't really stick around for long after Five turned up, and... Well, I hear you and Five kinda broke the ruins?"

Two pouted. "I didn't _break_ them. They were broken when I got there."

"Not what I meant." Yang said. "Apparently you did something big, though. Your Semblance was summoning or something?"

Two passed Yang a vanilla ice cream cone. "Oh, you mean the Egregori? Nah, that's not a Semblance thing, that's a Song thing."

Yang frowned, then licked her ice cream. "I thought the song was your Semblance."

Shaking her head, Two pulled away from her chocolate ice cream. "Huh? Oh, no, my song's not my Semblance. All us Intoners can use Song stuff."

"It's not a family Semblance? I thought you were like the Schnee."

"I never explained what an Intoner was properly, did I?" Two mused, before taking a bite of her ice cream. "It's a... Uh, Three had a full explanation its hard to remember it all..."

"I'm confused." Yang admitted. "Could you freeze explain?"

"It's pronounced 'Please'." Two corrected absentmindedly, while trying to think.

"...Pun." Yang clarified.

"Ah! Sorry." Two bowed her head. "I'm not good at identifying puns unless they're also innuendo coming from Cent because that's like most of what he says I think."

Yang sighed. "I have so much to teach you..."

Two nodded. "Anyway, uh... Ask One about it later, but basically? We Intoners, it's not like a family name or anything. It's like... You know how people are people and then there's Humans and Faunus? And then Faunus is always written with capital letters for some reason but sometimes humans is written all lowercase and sometimes humans refers to humans and Faunus at the same time or something?"

"I think Faunus are a subspecies of human, was the scientific explanation." Yang tried. "Like bears. You have the Ursus Arctos Horribilis and the Ursus Arctos Gyas, but both are bears. We have Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens Faunus, or something like that?"

Two nodded. "Oh, that's interesting. But why..."

She trailed off.

"Getting distracted." She said. "I'll have to buy a book later. Uh, anyway, Intoners are kinda like that. Not human."

"You look human." Yang frowned. "What do you mean? Do you have two hearts or something."

"Nah, more soul stuff." Two replied. "And, uh, unkillable."

"Say wha?"

Two breathed. "It's... I dunno, hard to explain? Three tested on herself, when an Intoner gets hurt they heal easily. Self inflicted stuff not much, so she thinks its only Intoners who can hurt Intoners."

Yang tried to wrap her head around what Two was saying. "And, this makes you unkillable somehow?"

"I mean, the knife in her heart from the guy who tried to stab her kinda gave it away..."

"I... Need to sit down." Yang said, moving to the table.

What was all this, then? Two wasn't human? Five wasn't human? Intoners can shrug off being _stabbed in the heart?_

...If Two wasn't there, would anyone have ever been able to beat Five?

"Well, I mean, it's not that good." Two continued. "She survived, but she was unconscious for like a week and couldn't move much for a month. Or something. She had a theory she was testing but I didn't understand it."

Yang felt dizzy. "I, uh..."

"You can test, if you want." Two said. "There's a knife here somewhere."

Yang blinked. "What? Oh, no, no, it's fine. I just... It's hard to believe, you know?"

"I know!" Two exclaimed. "We're so awesome! Anyway, I think the way Three put it was that we all have a connection to the Song, and then we all do a filter thingy that makes it One's song or Two's song and so on. And then we use it to make barriers and get stronger and summon our Angels."

"I feel like we started on the Angels." Yang noted. "But then I must've fallen from heaven or something because I'm not sure whats going on."

"What else was there..." Two mused. "Oh, there was the growing thing. Three's hair is always growing, Four's nails never stop, and Five's a cheating cheater who thinks she's so mature and brags about her growing trait which I won't talk about around you innocent minor ears."

"I think I can guess." Yang noted.

"No you can't!" Two insisted. "Otherwise I'd been irresponsible."

"...I mean, oh no, I wonder what it could be." Yang deadpanned.

Two nodded. "Okay. Good. Anyway, my growing thingy is my muscles. It's why I keep breaking things. I finally get close to managing it and suddenly I'm a million times stronger and Cent needs my song to heal his ribs."

She ate some more of her ice cream, as Yang nodded.

"I see..." She mused. "That's a lot to take in..."

Two nodded. "I'll ask Three to send you the essay. Wait, no, One, Three'll fall asleep."

"Wait." Yang sat up. "If the song thing isn't your semblance, then does that mean you and your sisters could have another trick up your sleeves?"

Two blinked. "...Do I have a Semblance? I should ask One. She'll know."

"So the song is just magic, then?" Yang asked, as Two got distracted again. "Also, your ice cream is melting."

In a sudden panic, Two shoved the entire cone and scoop in her mouth and swallowed without chewing.

"Don't choke." Yang advised, as Two put a hand to her throat.

"...I'm good." She decided. "Anyway, I think this is the thing where I talk and people get distracted and we're suddenly rambling about something completely different. Weren't we talking about Mountain Glenn?"

"...Were we?" Yang asked. "You kinda dropped some bombshells there. Figure of speech. I lost track somewhere around the time you said your sister survived being stabbed in the heart."

"Okay, Mountain Glenn." Two said. "You ran off to find your sister and bird uncle, and I fought Five. Won. Then her Disciple arrived after... I think it was your sister who you said fought him off? Yeah, he arrived and they did the thing to summon their angel, Phanuel. So I summoned my two Egregori and they beat up her crab monster and most of the city ruins are gone now."

"I'm very confused." Yang admitted. "But, anyway, I was wondering. You had to fight your sister. How are you dealing with that?"

"I..."

Two trailed off.

"...I feel like I failed her." Two admitted. "I still don't know why she took Ruby and I should have been there to stop her before then. But I can't just sit around and think about what ifs, can I? I have to just work better to make sure I look after my sisters better in the future, don't I?"

She took a moment to think. "And the orphans. I need to look after them. And Cent. And I can't just look after my little sisters, we still have no idea where Zero is so I need to look for her. And... I'd be sad if something happened to you too, Yang."

"...Thanks." Yang said. "But, well, don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" The blue haired woman asked.

"Yeah." Yang replied. "I need to look after Ruby. How am I supposed to have her rely on me if I can't even rely on me? If I'm not strong enough to stand by myself, then I'm letting her down."

Two made a sad face. "Yang, I'm sure she won't mind if you had to rely on people. She'd still care for you even if-"

"No." Yang insisted. "Even if Ruby'd be fine, I wouldn't be. I... Just need to be strong enough for her."

Two sighed, reached over, and patted Yang on the back.

"I understand." She said. "I'd feel bad if I let someone down too. Just... You've seemed kinda sad ever since you got here. And you don't seem to be healing properly either. There's scars on your leg and your Aura's been at, like, half ever since you came in. If you're too on edge to relax and recover properly..."

"Thanks for your concern." Yang noted. "But I'm fine."

"If you say so." Two chirped.

Yang enjoyed her ice cream for a moment, before Two spoke up.

"Hey." The Intoner started. "Can I ask a favour?"

"Hm?"

"Well, I'll be leaving soon." Two said. "And I know Ren and Nora are staying to try to get into Beacon next year. They've been helping a bunch around here from time to time, but they don't really know anyone around here. Do you mind being someone they can talk to? Like, they haven't popped in recently because they've been working a job somewhere, but last time they were here Ren noted that he's been focusing on stuff so hasn't been able to relax properly."

"You want me to show them around a bit?" Yang asked.

"Just be a friend." Two asked. "Like, they might need one. Ren acts quiet and Nora acts chirpy but I think they're hurting a bit from what happened before they got to Vale, and they're working so hard just making ends meet and working on getting ready to try the Beacon entry exams."

"I'll try." Yang promised. "Do you know where they live? I'll drop by sometime, maybe take them out for pizza, maybe spar with them if they need help training for the combat exam?"

"Thanks, Yang." Two said. "You're a nice person. I don't want to bother you, but if you have any free time to do this stuff, just... People need people to help each other more, you know?"

"Yeah." Yang nodded, as she finished her ice cream and checked her time on her scroll. "Huh. I should probably be getting home soon."

"Already?" Two asked. "...Though you did come over kinda late, yeah. I wanted to watch the news soon too, 'cause Four wanted me to see if there's anything going on that might be White Fang related. She thinks its suspicious that they've been quiet."

She suddenly clicked a finger and pointed at Yang.

"Hey! She might come over some time. She's been trying to bring the group down, she said, so if there's a bunch hiding near Vale she'll pop by to fight them. I'll tell her to talk to you if she comes over, just to say hi. You might like her. She works hard too, always trying to be better, pushing herself to be better. You'll like her."

"I like how, in one sentence, you went from 'You might like her' to 'You will like her.'"

"Well, I corrected myself." Two said defensively. "I should've been clear from the start, the two of you are good people, you'll really like each other."

"Duly noted." Yang replied. "I look _Four_ ward to it."

Two paused. "You did the thing. Your voice changed tone for the pronunciation of the first syllabal of forw- _Ooh._ "

She started giggling. "Fourward. Ha. That's great."

"At least someone appreciates my talents." Yang said, with a grin. "Right then. See ya, Two!"

"Bye!" The blue haired woman waved goodbye, as Yang left.

 **And another two weeks pass. Yang keeps working. School has an assignment which she works on in a study group, she keeps up her training, she keeps interacting with people and...**

 **[X] Qrow decides to show her some more of the forest dream vision stuff. It continues making no sense, though...**  
 **[X] While keeping her promise to Two, Yang spent a day with Ren and Nora, complete with going out for pizza.**  
 **[X] She interacted a bit with a study group at school. Blast, Piran, and then a few students she hadn't interacted with much.**


	57. Only a Memory

**[X] Qrow decides to show her some more of the forest dream vision stuff. It continues making no sense, though...**

"I can't believe we're being given an assignment already." Blast complained, laying face-down on the couch in the study room.

"At least you got one of the easy ones." Piran replied, as he typed something into his scroll.

"Easy?" Blast asked. "What's easy about this? I'm supposed to write an essay on elementally aligned Aura's, and how some people have an Aura of a certain element whereas others don't."

Piran shrugged. "The topic is broad. Write a difference in effectiveness. I'll punch you in the face, then Yang can punch you in the face, and you can write about the difference."

"I like this plan." Yang spoke up. "Though, I might need to punch him twice, so he can compare me when I'm on fire and when I'm not."

"Jerks." Blast sighed.

Yang took a moment to look around the study room. There were four people in it, at that moment. Blast, Piran and herself were obvious, but the fourth was someone she hadn't seen in a while.

Periwinkle Flowers. Peri for short, since she was kinda embarrassed about her name. Not the best fighter, but one of the best academic students. Yang had no idea why she needed to study with a group, but she wasn't complaining. Blast had a theory that she was there to enjoy being the smartest person in the room but that was unproven.

"So..." Blast wondered. "What are the rest of you doing?"

"We covered this five minutes ago." Piran noted.

"We were walking past a reflective surface, I got distracted."

Piran sighed. "Can we kick him out? I want to kick him out."

"Play nice." Yang said, as she looked at her own paper. "I'm doing a study on the manipulation of the soul. Ever heard of a Pact?"

Blast and Piran shook their heads, and Peri looked up after a moment.

"I _think_ I recall reading about it once?" She asked. "It's an obscure topic. Something about fusing your soul with that of a beast? But the process isn't known, so it hasn't been researched in years..."

"Isn't known by humans." Yang pointed out. "Turns out, all those rare fantastic beasts that people don't know where to find? They know a lot."

"I get the feeling you had a more exciting trip than I did." Peri noted.

"If you can change the past I'll switch with you in a heartbeat." Piran said. "Trust me, it wasn't all that fun."

"Point is." Yang spoke up. "I actually know a... Pact partner who's not all together, but she was going through a rough time when she tried to strangle me-"

"What?"

"-And I mostly contact the people who are watching her." Yang continued. "So I have a source there in addition to any pre-existing ones."

Peri nodded. "I'd suggest looking into some of Professor Ozpin's published articles, then. He's done a lot on the nature of the soul, so he might have something relevant to the process behind the fusion."

"Thanks." Yang replied, tapping through her scroll to bring up Ozpin's list of works.

"What about you, Peri?" Blast asked.

"Healing." Peri noted. "I'm thinking of focusing on the nature in which a particularly debilitating wound, or one gained during an overly traumatic experience, can leave enough of an impact on one's sense of self that the wound heals in a way that leaves a mark. For instance, someone who's never been injured in a fight and then gets their arm cut may find a scar forming instead of healing."

"So basically you're justifying every action movie villain who has a scar over their eye?"

"I suppose I am." Peri mused.

"Well, you have fun with that." Blast noted. "Piran?"

"Inherited abilities." He replied curtly. "Why people can have similar abilities to their parents and how big an impact a person actually has on their children's Semblance."

"Cool." Blast said. "...Hey Piran, people tend to be more likely to have an elemental Aura if their parents have them, right?"

"If I answer you, you'll keep asking me question." Piran said.

"Come on, let's work together-"

"There's plenty of people you can work with." Piran said. "Yang. Peri. The others who're currently in the process of procrastinating."

"Fine." Blast sighed. "Have fun, I'm going to hang out with Cardin at the arcade."

He rolled off the couch, and then rolled towards the door.

"Stand up." Piran told him.

"Not the boss of me." Blast replied.

* * *

"So." Taiyang asked, as everyone sat around eating lasagna. "Not much longer until your birthday, Ruby."

The red cloaked girl nodded her head. "Uh huh. You're not doing the joke where you pretend to forget this year?"

"Need to give some time between each execution or you learn to expect it." Taiyang noted.

Yang nodded. "Uh huh. That's totally it. Nothing about feeling bad when you got upset, honest."

"Did you want anything in particular?" Her father asked.

Ruby thought on it for a moment. "...It kinda spoils the surprise if I ask for something like this, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but it also means I don't misstep like, to use a completely random example, take your sister out for a haircut on her birthday."

"In my defence." Yang spoke up. "They told me they were looking for an excuse to replace those scissors and that mirror anyway. Also I was five."

She finished up the last of her lasagna, mopping up the last of the leftovers. "Anyway, I'm going for a walk. See you soon."

She rushed out of the house as her father said goodbye, and Ruby was going through her fifth sitting.

Where did she put all that food anyway?

...Some sort of riddle that history can deal with, maybe.

Walking by the river, Yang headed up to the waterfall for her usual Aura exercises. Approaching it, she saw a figure move in the shadows of the forest, and spun to the source.

Her uncle Qrow stepped out from behind a tree, a robot arm holding a bottle of beer.

"Hey." The old man said. "How're you?"

"Nice to see you, Qrow." Yang replied. "What are-"

"I think I'm a bit tipsy." Qrow continued. "Anyway, how's life?"

"It's alright." Yang continued. "Ruby's birthday's coming up, in case you have time for this one."

"Nah." Qrow replied. "I mean, maybe I'll try, but you know we're getting to that time of year where I just wanna be drunk for a while."

Yang sighed. Her father had advised her not to ask too much about it, but Qrow did seem to disappear for longer periods of time this time of year. Which was a shame because he'd been to maybe one of Ruby's birthdays.

"Anyway." Qrow continued. "I wanted to drop by real fast. It's been a while since we did the thing. Want to try training up the... Not-magic?"

...Yeah, that sounded like a useful trick. If she could figure out more of whatever it was, it could help her get stronger, and keep Ruby safe.

"Sure." Yang replied. "This is the part where you get me lost in the woods, ri-"

Suddenly, Qrow burst into flames and burnt to ash.

"...Right into metaphor dream land, I see."

"Stop pointing that out." A bird in the trees whispered in Qrow's voice, before flying away.

"...Okay then." Yang replied, going for a walk. "Wonder what this place is all about, then..."

She walked forward, through the forest, looking around in the process. The place seemed rather more ominous than before, the trees more twisted and the shadows more ominous. Which was probably something symbolic of something but Yang didn't really want to think about that. She passed a huge clearing, surrounded by a thick layer of damaged trees with golden leaves, with the red rose starting to wilt in the centre.

"So what exactly am I doing here?" She asked, as she passed a tree with a spear impaled through it. Which she knew full well was symbolic of the time she had a spar impaled through her.

A lot of bad memories, which she didn't want to think about it. She should figure out what exactly the purpose of this place was.

...Qrow had said something about souls resonating off of trees and animals? Maybe she should try experimenting that. Moving forward, she stepped near a tree and touched a small circle pattern on it.

 _Birds chirped, and the man and the woman walked past the tree, admiring the place._

Yang blinked as she looked around, stepping away from the tree.

The tree itself was looking less twisted, more like an actual tree she'd see in a place near here, and the ground seemed more lively.

"...Huh." She mused. "That was... Weird."

She took a moment to think, trying to remember what she could of the scene. There was two people, but she couldn't quiet put her finger on what either of them looked like...

Well that was frustrating. Maybe there was something else she could look out for? Maybe an animal.

Completely coincidentally- Possibly- A small rabbit bounced out of the woods, and Yang reached down and touched its ear.

 _The wolf growled as it drew closer, and the rabbit ran further down its hole as the wolf dug into it. The scent of blood was on its breath, and the rabbit feared for its life as-_

 _There was a pause in the digging, and the wolf suddenly ran off. The rabbit kept digging, especially as it suddenly felt a sudden chill, the feeling of a Grimm walking past its hole..._

Yang pulled her hand away in sudden shock, as the rabbit fled beneath the holes of a tree.

"...Anything else?" She asked, looking around. There was a bird watching her from the trees, so she walked over towards it. It didn't move, looking at it with it's mechanical wi-

...Wait, what?

The crow looked at her, and Yang looked at the crow.

"...Thank you." She said. "For this chance to make endless puns regarding you name."

The bird turned and tried to fly away, and Yang stumbled forward to grab its tail.

 _There was blood on the dusty path as he arrived, swiping out in a rage against the golden eyes staring down at him. Those eyes disappeared backwards behind a burning flame, and for a moment, he looked down._

 _*** tried to stand, but stumbled, *** **** glowing as *** looked at the golden eyes. Blood poured from *** chest, dyeing *** clothes red as she stumbled forward._

 _"Stay still." He said, the panic in his voice. "Ozpin's not far, he'll be able to help, he'l-"_

 _*** collapsed, as *** breath stilled. The golden eyes chuckled, stepping forward, and he dashed forward with his scythe tearing through the air. The sudden shift extinguishes the flame, and his scythe hits a weakened Aura. With a shout, he broke the Aura, and the golden eyes widened in shock._

 _There was blood and anger and a hate that fell both ways, blame towards both feet, and a scream ripped from his lips as rain fell down on the-_

The crow's tail left her hand, and Yang stared forward, for a moment.

It was raining now, and the trees had opened into a similar path to the one she had just seen. The trees either side of the dirt path had caught aflame, and the rain did nothing to extinguish it. A raindrop hit Yang's nose, and she looked up to see them falling from a clear, open, red sky.

"Behold..." Qrow's voice suddenly spoke, before trailing off sadly. "The... Ah, screw it."

He clicked, and suddenly, Yang was back at the river. Qrow was in front of her, drinking from his bottle.

"...What was that?" She asked.

"You've gotten to the first milestone." Qrow created. "You looked up. Trust me, harder than you'd think, and most who do don't notice the sky being red right away."

"I wasn't talking about that." Yang replied.

Qrow sighed. "...I had figured, yeah." He said

"What was-"

"Don't ask." He interrupted. "Just... Look after yourself, okay Yang? And don't mention this to Ruby, please."

He wandered off behind a tree, and disappeared. Yang watched the area where Qrow had stood for a moment, and noticed a crow flying away a moment later.

...Was that what she thought it was?

She didn't know. She was feeling tired. Sleepy. Needed to sleep. She could wake up and think about whatever that was supposed to be later.

If she still remembered, then. She'd already forgotten what the first thing she had seen it was, and there was some sort of gap in her mind already, when she tried to think about...

Something, about that last scene. It was weird.

Wandering off back home, Yang got ready to go to bed.

 **Over the next few weeks, coming up to Ruby's birthday, Yang did some more training. Specifically, she...**

 **[X] Went out to the woods to train the thing Qrow had done. Had he turned into a bird there? Could she do that? Was that a possibility here?**  
 **[X] She needed finer control of her Aura, intensify her training. She should try and force herself to figure out the trick to keeping oxygen underwater.**  
 **[X] Weird magic nonsense and Aura control were good and all, but nothing beat fight experience. She should find someone to fight.**


	58. Red Sky

**[X] Went out to the woods to train the thing Qrow had done. Had he turned into a bird there? Could she do that? Was that a possibility here?**

"Anything on TV?" Ruby asked, as Yang flicked through some channels.

"Doesn't look like it." Yang replied, as she stopped at a news channel. There was a segment playing about Jacques Schnee going on a hunting trip, with some concern regarding how the White Fang had been quiet recently and wondering if they had been waiting for something like this.

"Then pass me the remote." Ruby complained, as the topic changed again to noting how the former champion of the Mistral regional tournament was still missing. "The news is boring and there's a comedy show on or something. It's my birthday tomorrow so you have to listen to me, we agreed remember?"

Yang pretended to give a long-suffering sigh as she passed the remote to Ruby. "Yeah, alright. I was gonna go for a walk in a minute earlier."

"You don't need to." Ruby quickly assured her. "There's... Ugh, there's a guy who does a lot of puns on the show apparently, you might like it. We could watch it together, if you wanted."

"Thanks for the offer." Yang replied. "But nah. I've got a schedule going now, don't want to break it."

Ruby sighed. "...Okay."

She pressed a few buttons on her remote for a bit, before flicking over to a stand up comedy routine. A Faunus with chicken feathers through his hair made a joke about quickly going through 'The obligatory' chicken jokes, before moving on to state that the chicken that crossed the round eventually got taken out when the road put a bounty on its head.

Ruby was looking kinda sad, as Yang left the house for her walk that day.

...She was obviously concerned about Yang. Maybe she didn't want Yang to wear herself out by training too much. Maybe it was the same issue Yang had. Maybe Ruby didn't want Yang worrying about Ruby as much as she was.

That was Ruby for you. One of the kindest people you'd ever meet. Wanted to be a Huntress to help people, and never wanted people to worry about her too much. She deserved better than Yang making her fret because she had to work so hard, to overcome her weakness.

But she couldn't just do nothing, either. Ruby deserved better than to watch her big sister be run through with a spear. She deserve better to be sitting over her sister's non-responsive body in a hospital somewhere. A girl who could so easily shrug off anything bad happening to her and try to move forward at all times, who never even stopped to think too hard about the bad things in life to remember the good...

Yang needed to be stronger for her. Yang needed to be able to protect her sister. More than that, she needed to be able to assure her sister that everything was okay. That everything was fine. Someone who was naturally so happy shouldn't be sad, ever. And especially not Ruby.

So even if Ruby worried about her now, or the reasons why Yang was pushing herself so hard, she had to keep going. She'd heard the stories about what Two and Five had done while fighting each other, and what they called up. She'd seen pictures. If people like _that_ existed in this world, then Yang wasn't strong enough. Dito had been Five's underling, weaker by every account, and he had so easily controlled the fight.

Even if she hadn't realised it before Mountain Glenn, Yang couldn't ignore the problem now. She needed to be better if she was going to protect her sister.

Setting off into the forest again, Yang went for her usual spot.

It'd almost been funny, how quickly things had fallen into a routine. After everything that had happened with Five, you'd think there'd be a longer period of time where things were chaotic. But everyone seems to have recovered alright. Qrow wasn't around, but that was normal. Ruby was going to school just fine, Yang was going to school just fine, she'd pop by the study room while Ruby was in the weapons room across the hall and the two of them would do their things for an hour or so after school.

It varied a bit from there, between hanging out with people and some training, but she did always focus on going for a walk through the forest at night so she could be sure she was training up her Aura constantly.

She was... Fairly sure she was getting stronger. She hadn't really had a chance to measure her growth. She'd prefer not to, either. She'd need to be pushed as hard as she had been earlier to get that far, and to be quite honest, she'd prefer not to have to be put under so much risk again.

How many times had she nearly died, in that month? The mercenary captain had stabbed her and left her to bleed out, saving the Undine so the girl wouldn't die too had nearly done it as well, she came a bit too close to comfort when the girl had breakdown, and then Dito...

And then even ignoring her near death experiences, there was the list of her failures. She hadn't saved everyone in that burning town. People had been shot down because she misread her opponent and gave them a chance to kill. She'd failed Ruby by not being there in the first place. She'd failed Ruby again by being as hurt as she had been in front of her, failed everyone else by just running off the instant Five started baiting her. She'd dragged Miltia with her, then let her run off on her own and get beaten bloody by Melanie.

It wasn't good enough. None of it was.

She needed to do better. Learn from her mistakes. Not let them, any of them, happen again.

Reaching the waterfall as usual, Yang paused, and looked over to the trees she had last seen Qrow leaning against.

...She was curious, she had to admit. There was _something_ going on with what he was teaching her. It was clear from the start it was some sort of magic, and the soul resonance thing apparently let her review memories. And though she was having some trouble remembering exactly what she had seen out of her uncle, she did remember the odd experience that was the weird dreamscape, as well as the way he turned into a bird to fly away, from the looks of things.

She wanted to know more.

Walking away from the waterfall and into the trees a bit, Yang calmed her breathing, and tried to remember exactly how she entered that weird state.

...Well, Qrow had been the one to initiate it. So maybe she couldn't pull it off without him. But she had to try something. Resting against a tree for a moment, she tried thinking about how Qrow would have done it.

Think, think. Yang had to think. What would Qrow have done...

...No, that wasn't working. It was weird. She knew he was a teacher and a hunter, but the image of him as a slightly sad and comedic uncle who drinks a bit kinda overrode that, let alone the new mental image of him as some sort of sage of the forest who held great secrets.

Yang stared up, let out a breath, and tried something else.

After a moment, she tried flaring her Aura. Supposedly, what Qrow was doing was resonating her soul off all the trees and animals around, so maybe...

A bit of grass caught fire at her feet, and Yang abandoned that tactic. Closing her eyes, she tried something else.

Turning around on the tree she was leaning against and trying to ignore the slight scorch on it, she tried literally hugging the tree.

...Nope, also not working.

Well, something had to, right?

She walked further into the forest, looking around, until a glimmer of gold caught her eye.

That tree in the corner, there was something about it. She stepped towards it, and noticed the circle pattern on it.

Was this the same tree from her little spirit journey? She hadn't recalled it being so normal, but she supposed it was less likely to be really really ominous outside of metaphor land.

Reaching out, Yang touched the circle-

 _The woman let out a little laugh, as she carved against the tree. The man said something, and the woman told him something in a slightly disappointed voice. The man himself carried an axe, and the woman gave a sigh as he moved forward to cut it. Naturally. It was old wood. Strong wood. Good for building or burning._

Yang pulled away, frowning. Those two people had felt familiar, someone. Like...

...She wasn't getting anything, she sighed. She looked up to think, and paused.

A red sky hovered above her.

"...I did it?" She asked. "Sweet. I'm the best."

A sudden cold wind blew through the branches, and Yang shuddered, suddenly wishing she was wearing heavily clothing.

Stepping away from the tree and looking around, Yang noticed that the change that had happened when she had touched Qrow had remained. She walked onto a dusty dirt path, with blood stains and scorch marks covering the road, and thought for a moment.

Roads had to lead somewhere. So, in this strange metaphor dream land, maybe she'd get somewhere if she followed the road?

Wandering down it a bit, Yang thought to herself a bit, about the nature of whatever was happening here.

The sky was red. That was... Weird.

For some reason, it felt normal. Wrong, but normal.

The wrongness couldn't be understated though. Despite the contradictory idea that the sky was _supposed_ to be red, there was just something about it that made Yang's skin crawl.

It couldn't just be a symbolism thing. Even if red did have a few negative connotations- Anger, violence, blood, the works- It was also the colour of love. Not to mention Ruby's favourite colour. She'd worn red her whole life. Yang couldn't remember ever seeing Ruby when she wasn't wearing a red hood of some sort. She had more positive memories of the colour red then negative.

In which case, why was it causing this reaction? Looking into the red sky, Yang felt an oppressive weight on her shoulders, like a cruel gaze judging her, and finding her lacking.

Lacking.

Not good enough.

 _Weak_.

The thought _thundered_ through her head as she stared at the dark sky above her, driving Yang to her knees for a moment. She tried to stand, shaking, and took another step, before she _collapsed_ again.

 _This_ was some kind of metaphor, wasn't it? _Something_ to do with _weakness_. _Falling_ and _failing_ , even as she tried to _stand_ and _move on_ and the _fall_ came again because she _wasn't strong enough_ -

She gritted her teeth, as she flared her Aura and stood again.

 _No._

She was _not_ going to just fail like that. The sky was challenging her? The sky thought she wasn't good enough? She'd show the sky, she'd _fight_ the sky! Fuck the sky!

Sprinting down the dusty road, Yang watched as it seemed to stretch on infinitely. No end in sight. Nothing but more road, surrounded by more trees, with more of a hateful red sky overhead. There was an uncomfortable silence in the air, and Yang realised she couldn't hear her own footsteps.

It was an odd silence. Not the silence of nothingness. More of a muffled silence. A silence trying to block something out.

Yang looked up for a moment to see the red sky _slam down_ on her, bringing her to her knees again, and she flared her Aura even more. The world outside the dirt path faded slightly, and Yang felt a fire in her eyes and a light in her chest as she stood. The silence was deafening, as she continued to run.

It occurred to her, after a minute, that she didn't even know why she was running. But she put that thought out of her mind after a moment. Asshole sky thought she couldn't, she'd show it.

There was a pain in her chest, and Yang reached for it in a sudden shock. Then, shaking her head, she pulled her hand away.

A glowing, burning light came away with it.

Yang looked down at the ball for a moment, curious. What...

What was this?

Everything faded away around her. The rest of the trees vanished. The road vanished. The red sky was still there, but fainter. Out of notice, even as it surrounded Yang. As far as she was concerned, there was her, and there was the ball of light.

It took Yang a moment to realise that her Aura had disappeared. In fact, it had vanished the moment she pulled out the light in front of her. And keeping in mind that this was metaphor land...

Her head was feeling fuzzy, as the red sky surrounded her, drowning out all thought. It started to intensify again, and Yang reached for the ball with her other hand to try and concentrate.

The moment her left hand touched the ball on her right, the entirety of her left arm was engulfed in flames.

In shock, Yang let go, pulling away. The arm stopped burning instantly, even if it still felt hot. The pain faded after a moment, and Yang looked closer at the ball.

There was a faint dent in the ball. Like a hard casing had been torn away. No, not that. It was still hard. But when Yang focused on it, she noticed it expand to return to a ball-like shape. She concentrated, and it dented. She concentrated, and it returned to a fixed position.

...Huh.

Okay, metaphor dream examination time. That ball had been pulled out of her chest. Once she did so, her Aura disappeared. Ergo, she was holding her soul.

The more she concentrated on her soul, the easier it was to ignore the red sky around her making it hard to think. That probably meant something.

When she touched it in this state, her soul lashed out against her. Like some kind of defence mechanism? But at the same time, that little touch had left her soul more...

Malleable.

That was probably significant, to a degree. This was meant to be some sort of strange spirit journey thing to be able to master magic of some kind, the strength of Yang's soul was probably related to that.

Maybe if she shaped her soul-ball into a soul-bird, she'd get Qrow's weird bird power thingy.

...She was feeling really tired, and it was getting hard to think. If she was going to make a decision on what to do with the soul thing, she should do so now.

She could ignore the burning and the pain, and force her soul to be shaped how she wanted. It'd be easy. She'd just have to force herself through it, and she refused to be _weak_ and let pain overcome her. And when she was done...

 **[X] She should do it. It probably wouldn't take long, and she might get bird powers out of it. She was strong enough to do it.**  
 **[X] She shouldn't. She was tired, she might make a mistake, and she didn't have a spare soul in case she broke something.**


	59. Like It's Her Birthday

**[X] She shouldn't. She was tired, she might make a mistake, and she didn't have a spare soul in case she broke something.**

Her soul in her hand, Yang took a long time to think.

Her left hand hovered for a moment, ready to go. It would be so easy. She just needed to reach out, shape it, change it. Otherwise, what had she accomplished today?

...Damn it, it was getting hard to think. There was too much odd here, too much she didn't understand. She wanted to get stronger, she _needed_ to get stronger, but...

This was her soul in her hands. The very essence of her being. Her. Was she really willing to mess around with the core of her being?

...Well, yes, but not now. There'd be other times. Times where her head wasn't getting fuzzy. When Qrow was walking her through what she was and was not meant to do in regards to pulling this off.

Letting her left hand fall away, Yang sighed. She put her right hand to her chest again, feeling the ball of light entering her again, and the ground formed under her feet again. The sky went back into the sky where it belonged, even if it was still red, and Yang found herself on the dirt path once again. The sky wasn't pushing her down anymore, and it seemed unreasonably smug.

Asshole sky. She'd show it.

...When did she start attributing emotions and reactions to the sky?

She wandered down the road again, back the way she came. She needed to go home now, and she wasn't entirely sure how this place worked, so she'd want to be able to hopefully figure that out soon. Maybe that tree which she had entered in from would be a good place to start. Or maybe something else.

Looking up at the sky again, Yang thought about it for a moment, and decided that she wasn't wrong when she decided the red sky hanging over head was openly malicious. She wasn't sure what was wrong with it at a glance, beyond it being the wrong colour, but it made her skin crawl.

What the hell was up with the place, anyway? It was supposed to be some kind of nature based magic soul resonance thing, but it had an evil sky? Why was that a thing? On the scale of things that should be a thing and things that should not be things, it was very much a thing that should not be a thing.

...It was still hard to think here. She blamed the red sky. The red sky was clearly distracting her so she couldn't think. She should try to stop thinking about it, and think a bit more about how to escape metaphor dream land.

...What did Qrow do to get her out again?

Yang put a hand in front of her face. Maybe this would work.

Her fingers clicked, and nothing changed.

"...Well there goes all my ideas." She muttered beneath her breath. "Okay, think. Think, Yang think. Use that beautiful brain of yours. What did Qrow say about this place?"

He had to have hinted at something to do with how she could get out, right? Even if Qrow wanted her to only try it while he was around, that couldn't have been because there was no way out, right?

I mean, someone had to learn this for the first time, so it wasn't impossible to get out on her own. And she was fairly sure he had a different reason to want to be there whenever she was doing trips into metaphor world.

...Wait, it was a soul resonance thing, right? Maybe if she tried messing around with her Aura, and _not_ any of the ball soul stuff, she'd be able to disrupt the process enough that the soul resonance thing failed?

...Or collapsed into a messy tangle of soulstuff of plants and wild animals and things went wrong and yeah Yang was starting to see why Qrow didn't want her doing this on her own.

Okay, maybe mistakes were made.

Actually, she got in here touching the tree. Maybe if she touched the same tree again, it'd work.

Or something.

...Now if only she could find it.

Looking to the side of the path, it occured to Yang that all the trees looked the same.

"...I don't supposed a way out would appear if I asked?" She tried. "Because I wanna leave."

A small rabbit hopped out of the trees, towards Yang's feet.

"...Huh." She mused. "That's... Huh."

She reached down to pet its ears-

 _The carrot was tasty. Delicious, even. Life was simply while eating the carrot. The blond human had given a carrot when he had seen the rabbit in the trees. This was a nice place._

Yang felt the ears slip out of her grasp and the rabbit bounce into the distance. She looked up, confirming a blue sky above her head, and looked back to see the waterfall behind her.

"...I should get home." She sighed. "It's getting late. I'll just figure it out next time I see Qrow I guess..."

Sighing and turning back down the river, Yang began the walk home.

* * *

Yang woke up early the next morning, before sneaking out of her room. The wooden door squeaked slightly as she tiptoed down the door and stairs. She saw her father exit his room as she passed, and he disappeared into his room to start grabbing some boxes after checking the coast was clear.

Yang sneaked down the stairs and towards the kitchen, ready to prepare breakfast for everyone before-

The light switched on, and Ruby was sitting at the table. The instant she saw Yang, she started vibrating, the chair rattling as it started to fall apart. She looked at Yang, excited and expectant.

Damn it, so much for being able to have a peaceful breakfast.

"Happy Birthday, Rubes." Yang said, trying to play it off casually.

Ruby pushed forward a bowl that Yang was fairly certain wasn't there before.

"Here, I made you some breakfast." Ruby said. "Didn't want to slow things down. Hey, where's dad?"

Yang considered things for a moment.

Ruby was excited. While happy Ruby was a good thing, this was Ruby on Ruby's Birthday. She wasn't just excited, she was ecstatic. She'd stop being so pushy if she knew people wanted her to slow down, but that'd make her less happy and that was the opposite of what Yang wanted.

At the same time, she didn't want to be rushed while eating and end up almost choking again. Thrice was bad enough...

Which gave raise to the question. Sell out where her father was and let Ruby start moving all the presents into prime unwrapping position, or withhold the information and be rushed while Ruby waits for her to finish so they can go off together, thus giving Taiyang time without being rushed to prepa-

"He's in his room up the stairs getting all the hidden presents." Yang immediately sold out without shame. There was a red blur, and Ruby was gone.

Yang walked over to her bowl of cereal, ignoring the crash from upstairs.

"Oh." She noticed. "Schnee Bubbles. That's..."

She paused. "Wait, Ruby made this, there's probably more sugar than milk in there. This is acceptable."

She sat down and started eating her sugary cereal, even as Ruby continued running up and down the stairs, repeatedly, carrying a box each time. Her father, a defeated expression on his face, slowly picked up two pieces of toast that were prepared in advance, and wanders off to supervise Ruby.

"You would've done the same to me." Yang justified herself, at his judging stare.

He turned his gaze silently, as he left the room.

Yang shrugged. "Well I'm happy, at least."

Today should be a good day. Ruby would be happy enough that it'd be easy to just forget the context of the year so far and just enjoy Ruby's happiness. After the year she'd had, Ruby's happiness was far too fragile for Yang's liking.

It reminded her too much of a time long past. So far in the past that Yang's recollection of those days were vague, when Ruby seemed to have an aura of melancholy about her. A lot like Yang's father had carried after her mother had disappeared. Today wasn't as bad, but even the vague memory of that day, when Ruby was quieter and sadder, was enough to give Yang the motivated she needed.

Ruby was a good person. One who should never look sad. That was supposed to be how it worked, after all. People with high hopes are supposed to be in high spirits.

Yang finished her cereal, put her bowl on the sink, and quickly rinsed it. Then, as she felt the wind move slightly behind her, she let both go and took a step back.

Ruby' arm caught Yang's a split second later, before the wind nearly made her stumble. Then Ruby pulled her into the living room, by the couch.

"C'mon Yang!" She cheered, as her father stacked the presents on the table, a small smile on his lips. Yang noticed there was one shaking box in the middle, isolated from the rest.

Ruby pushed Yang into a seat, and sat in the middle of the couch, jumping up and down a bit in front of the presents.

It was nice, seeing her so happy. Birthdays were nice like that, really. One specific person got to be really happy, and that happiness was contagious.

With all the presents stacked, Ruby reached for the big, shaking one in the middle.

"Not that one." Her father suggested, resting on the side of the couch and letting his right arm dangle off the side, out of view. "Save the best for last."

Ruby looked at it suspiciously. "What's in the box, dad?"

"Nothing."

There was a muffled barking sound from inside the box, and Ruby's eyes went wider than saucepans. Yang herself looked at it in surprise for a moment.

"It's a dog?" Ruby asked.

"It could be anything." Taiyang noted, as the muffled barking continued. "We'll find out when you open it last."

Ruby gave a long, loving look towards the dog box, before sighing and reaching for a smaller present with a card on top.

"It's from Uncle Qrow." Ruby noted. "I'm going to guess this is the obligatory socks and underwear present?"

"When you think about it." Taiyang mused. "He's really more of a Mother Hen... Need to work that into a pun later..."

Ruby groaned, putting the soft package behind her, and moved on to the next present. "Oh hey dad, it's the one you got me!"

"I wonder what it could be?" Taiyang asked.

Ruby's quick fingers opened the package in a jiffy, before coming to a cardboard box. Ruby opened the cardboard box, and pulled out another wrapped package.

"...Yang, can you get me the scythe blade in the training room?" Ruby asked. "The really sharp one."

Taiyang sighed. "Kids these days don't appreciate the good jokes..."

He reached out to take the package, quickly unboxing another ten layers of box to wrapping paper to box, before passing it to Ruby.

"Here you go." He said. Ruby took it, looked at the much smaller package suspiciously, before unravelling it.

Yang looked over Ruby's shoulder, and blinked when she saw the present.

"Is that the new Lionheart novel?" Yang asked, looking at the brazenly printed letters of the title, _The Lion, The Witch, and the War Drone_. "I thought it wasn't coming out for another few months."

"That's just because the author's manager wanted to release it a bit after the movie comes out." Taiyang noted. "She was happy to send out an early copy when I asked."

Ruby blinked. "Wait, you _know_ -"

"Don't tell anyone this." Taiyang whispered. "Buy the name Adnylg isn't just an alias, but it's a really bad one if you know who she really is. She works with Qrow most of the time. We usually meet up whenever Qrow gets too drunk and she needs someone to lock him in his home."

Ruby smiled. "You're the coolest, dad."

"Factually untrue, if anything my body temperature is several-"

"Nevermind I take it back." Ruby said quickly, putting the book down on the table and looking towards the shaking box. "And I don't wanna wait anymore!"

Yang smiled, as Ruby tore open the cardboard box that was shaking and making barking sounds, revealing-

...A walkie talkie attached to an alarm clock?

Yang blinked. Ruby blinked.

"Just as I said." Taiyang nodded sagely. "It could be anything."

The walkie talkie made another barking sound, and Yang tilted her head in unison with Ruby's.

"...Why?" Yang asked, after a moment.

Ruby's question interrupted any real answer, however. "Where's the barking coming from? I mean, there has to be another end on the walkie talkie, right?"

Taiyang seemed to consider that for a moment.

"That's a good point." He decided, before lifting the arm hanging off the side of the couch and pulling up a small furry thing. "Hey puppers, know where the walkie talkie is?"

The fluffy thing barked and gestured downwards, and Ruby made a squeaking sound as she used her Semblance to suddenly be next to it. She pulled it off of her dad, and started looking at it.

Yang looked at the, quiet frankly, adorable dog that Ruby was cooing over for a moment.

"She seems happy." Taiyang noted. "And the joke worked!"

Yang chuckled a bit. "You enjoyed that way too much."

Her father shrugged. "Hey, Ruby's happy now and that's all that matters."

Ruby paused suddenly while nuzzling the puppy's cheek, and pulled away.

"...I mean..." She stammered, before putting it on the ground and starting to talk in a voice that sounded like a child in a candy store trying to be casual. "You're a cute little puppy. My little puppy. The cutest wittle puppy doggie in the whol- No, Ruby, focus."

The dog tilted its head, and Ruby scratched it behind the ear.

"Why didn't I get a pet when I was Ruby's age?" Yang asked suddenly.

"Would you hit me if I said she was the favourite?" Taiyang asked.

Ruby gave Taiyang a glare, and the dog jumped up to lick her face.

Yang laughed a bit, and briefly considered answering her father's joke about also liking Ruby better than Yang, but decided that was getting a bit too close to touching a topic Yang didn't want to discuss.

Today was a happy day.

"So what kind of cake did you get for later?" Yang asked.

Her father froze.

"...Dad?" The yellow haired teen asked.

Taiyang turned to look at his older daughter. "...I knew I was forgetting _something_..."

Ruby looked up, away from the dog. "Did someone say something? I got a bit distracted by cute little Zwei-"

"Why Zwei?" Yang asked, before reconsidering. "No, nevermind. I, uh, I just remembered, I need to run down to the shops because dad, uh..."

"Forgot to buy milk?" Taiyang tried.

"You can admit that you forgot to buy a cake, you know." Ruby sighed. "I know I get overexcited, but I'm not going to eat you just because I wanted a cake immediately..."

"But that ruins the joke, Ruby." Yang smiled. "Anyway, I'll go cover for him. If you have to eat dad, give some of it to the dog, okay?"

"I feel opposed to that idea." Taiyang objected.

The new dog barked.

"Three against one." Yang translated. "Sorry, dad. I'd pick which limb I'm least attached to."

And with that, Yang started skipping towards the front door, off to buy a cake.

 **While on a quick run to the shop, Yang has an interesting encounter. While on the way to the store...**

 **[X] She notices Ren and Nora walking down the street, with Nora looking sadly at two pieces of a broken weapon.**  
 **[X] After running into a dead end that Yang could have swore was a shortcut, her wallet and scroll disappears.**  
 **[X] As she passed an electronics store, she noticed a woman wearing green watching a news report on the White Fang.**


	60. Bad Influence

**[X] As she passed an electronics store, she noticed a woman wearing green watching a news report on the White Fang.**

"-the first time in several months, a sighting of a White Fang member has been confirmed, attacking a Dust shop while wearing the known mask of the terrorist organisation."

Yang turned to the window in the store as the news report continued. Another person, a woman in green with brown hair, was also watching intently.

"The criminal, currently believed to be a Cat Faunus of some description, was seen briefly for a moment by a few different witnesses, before they were knocked out. The culprit wore a mask to disguise their appearance, and escaped without being identified. Several crates of Ice and Water Dust were stolen, as well as a large collection of fire and heat resistant materials."

"Curious..." The woman in green muttered to herself. "The materials in particular are rather specific, so the White Fang want them in particular. And Ice Dust is hardly the rarest, so it can't just be them trying to make a profit on the black market. There's not enough of a demand..."

Yang turned to the woman who was talking to herself. Her hand was on her chin in contemplation, long nails tapping at her cheek as she thought. She seemed to notice someone looking at her out of the corner of her eye, because after a moment, she turned towards Yang, looking at her with green eyes.

Yang's own eyes looked upwards, seeing the roman numerals on the woman's forehead.

"You're Two's sister?" Yang asked.

The girl in green blinked, and smiled. "You know Two? You must be Yang, I guess?"

"And I'm going to go out on a limb here..." Yang said, looking at the numerals on the other woman's head. "But I'm going to guess that you're Four."

"Well, obviously." The woman in green smiled. "A pleasure to meet you. Two's had a lot of praise about you."

"Well, clearly." Yang smiled, flipping her shortened hair back. "She talked a bit about you too. Not as much, but she had a lot of praise for you."

Four smiled.

"She said you might be coming over eventually." Yang continued. "Looking for the White Fang. And, uh, well..."

Yang looked back towards the televisions displayed in the window, which were now talking about how the White Fang hadn't made an appearance in months and speculating as to what they could be planning, disappearing from the public view for so long before re-appearing.

"She mentioned she had talked to you about me." Four mused. "I came over not long ago. Managed to find someone with connections and interrogated them. I have some leads, but I'll want to confirm them."

Yang paused for a moment.

Two had said something about how people should help people more, had told Four a bit about her, and Four was going off to fight the White Fang at some point. That might make a good point for Yang to get into a fight and test her abilities.

"Will you need a hand with that?" Yang asked. "The White Fang, I mean? I'm pretty sure an Intoner like you would be stronger then me, but if I could be any help, I don't mind punching a few people."

Four seemed to consider it for a moment.

"Well, there is only one of me." She mused. "And I don't know how big the White Fang base could be. Might be an idea to have someone there to make sure nobody escapes..."

Four shrugged. "Well, Two said a lot about you, so I suppose its an idea."

"Cool." Yang replied. "Uh, well, I'm not going to be able to really do anything today. Sister's birthday. But if you need me for anything, I'll see what I can do. Dad might not be too fond of the idea, though..."

Four shrugged. "If you want to help, you could just not tell him. If we have to leave the Kingdoms to find the White Fang that might be a problem, but I have ways to get around without anyone noticing if need be."

Yang continued to consider it for a moment. On one hand, she didn't want to disappoint her dad or Ruby, and running off to get in a fight with legitimate terrorists would be the sort of thing they would be upset at her for if they found out.

On the other hand...

...She wanted to fight. Needed it. She wanted to get the experience, see how much she had grown since the last time she'd been in a real fight. She was going to be a Huntress, she shouldn't just shy away from an actually serious fight, she was going to get into a lot once she graduated and started actually hunting.

"Alright." Yang replied. "Hey, do you have your scroll? I'll pass you my number and we can get in touch when you've found the place."

Four reached into a pocket in her cloak, and pulled out a small mechanical device. Yang followed suit, and noted a difference between Scrolls.

"Is that a newer model?" Yang asked. "It's slimmer than mine, and mine's hardly old."

"The perks of knowing the right people in Atlas." Four gave a little sing song while tapping the scrolls together. Numbers exchanged, and Four put hers away. "Oh, speaking of which..."

She pulled out something in a different pocket, a small package wrapped in paper. "Present from Two. She wanted you to pass something on to your sister."

Yang blinked. "She knew it was Ruby's birthday?"

"Right people." Four shrugged. "I was going to look for you later if I needed to, but since you're here, take this."

Four gave the small present to Yang, then rolled her shoulders. "Well, I won't distract you from your sisters birthday. Enjoy it with her. I'll talk to you later?"

"Sure." Yang replied. "What are you doing now, though?"

"The prisoner I interrogated named a few names." Four said. "I'm going to find these suspects and interrogate them, and bring any guilty party to justice."

Four gave a small pose at the word 'Justice,' and Yang had the nagging suspicion that Four was mentally capitalising the word when she spoke.

"Well, have fun with that." Yang waved. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Four nodded, then took a moment to notice that the news had gone to an ad break, advertising Schnee brand cutlery.

...Man, what didn't the Schnee sell these days?

"I'll be in touch." Four decided, before pausing. "Oh, and last thing. What are your opinions as Faunus as a whole? Outside the White Fang, I mean."

The question was blunt enough to give Yang pause. Outright asking what someone thought about Faunus? That was a question that's probably never been honestly answered ever. People with a negative view on them would lie to not be judged about it, after all.

Well, maybe some people would be honest, but only if they didn't care.

In this context, though? Asking after Four had invited Yang to fight the White Fang later? It was fairly obvious, what the intent was. She wanted to make sure she wasn't dragging a bigot with her into a fight against Faunus, presumably. Making sure that Yang wouldn't go too far intentionally or something. Nobody wanted to find out that they were encouraging behaviour like that, after all.

Yang shrugged. "Don't really think about it. They're just people with extras, really. Maybe I should care a bit more, but I'm hardly going to be having more fun than usual hitting things because its a Faunus, if that's what you're worried about."

Four turned away and looked into the distance in contemplation.

"...Hm." She mused. "I see. I'll see you later, Yang."

"Later, Four." Yang waved.

She seemed nice. Kinda distant, but barely knew her so that was to be expected.

Yang made sure her scroll and the present from Two were in her pocket, then wandered off to find the cake shop.

* * *

"I'm home!" Yang called, as she walked. There was a brief scuffle, and Ruby's new dog ran at the front door, Ruby a moment behind her.

The dog stopped and sat while it looked up at Yang, tongue hanging out as it panted, and Ruby nearly tripped over it before she stopped.

"Yang!" Ruby declared. "What kind of cake did you get?"

"That's a secret." Yang smiled. "No cake until after noon, remember?"

Ruby gave her a sad look. "But _Yang_..."

"Dad made the rules clear." Yang replied. "Cake is like a present, if you know the details its ruined."

Ruby gaze a disappointed sigh. "That worked last year..."

"Oh, and hey." Yang said, reaching into her pocket. "Ran into someone who had a message from Two. Happy birthday."

Yang threw the package at Ruby, who caught it and blinked.

"From Two?" She asked. "I barely even talked to her, though..."

"It's Two." Yang shrugged. "Do you really think she'd not send presents to people she's talked to before?"

"I suppose..." Ruby noted, as she opened it.

Inside the package was a letter and a smaller box, filled with some sort of red metal.

"What is it?" Yang asked.

Ruby looked into the card, catch a note of money of some sort as it fell, and read the letter.

"Hello..." Ruby muttered under her breath, reading the note. "Thought I'd send you something nice for your birthday. One knows some people, and while I didn't know enough about you to guess what you might like, so I just asked One to get something that might be useful. Hope you enjoy this batch of treated metal. They haven't worked out how to mass produce it yet, but you can bend it around some metal then treat it with some Dust, the metal will take that property. One used a lot of big words, but you can..."

Ruby trailed off. "Ow wow, that's really cool."

"What is it?" Yang asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Apparently, I just need to follow some instructions to change how the metal works. I can set it on fire with fire dust, make it energy with energy dust, or make it lighter but hit harder with gravity dust. That's pretty cool."

Yang blinked. "That's... That is pretty cool. I remember dad saying once that mum used to carry around like fifty sword blades in her holster so she could switch to whatever was the most useful, and you just need some dust with this?"

"Looks like." Ruby said, before musing. "...Actually, there's a bit there. Maybe I could put put some at the centre of mass and treat it with gravity or air Dust to make it lighter and be able to hit faster..."

Yang nodded, as Ruby trailed off, thinking about the possibilities.

"How much did this cost?" Ruby eventually asked. "Like, it's apparently hard to mass produce right now? How did Two get it from her sister? Is she secretly super rich?"

"I do hear they have a lot of money." Yang nodded. "Which is, like _super_ unfair. Not only are they really strong, but they're also loaded and have friends in high places. Intoners get all the luck."

Ruby looked up at Yang suspiciously, but after determining that there was no pun anywhere in her words, looked down at the dog, who barked.

"Hey, Zwei." Ruby said, leaning down to pet the doggie. "Who's a cute little dog? Eh? You are! Yes you are!"

Yang reached into her pocket to start filming, and Ruby immediately straightened her back.

"I mean." Ruby said, looking fearfully at Yang's pocket. "I, uh, I'm going to go put this and the card up in my room with the rest of the stuff. Why don't you sit down here with Zwei, and then we can go play with a ball out the back?"

Yang nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Ruby nodded, and ran up towards her room. Looking around to confirm the room was empty, Yang put the covered cake on a bench and leaned down.

"You really are a cute little doggie." Yang said. "Hey, you're gonna look after Ruby, right? You'll make her smile, but you'll keep her safe too, right?"

The dog licked Yang's face when she leaned in too close.

"I'll take that as a yes, then?" Yang asked, rubbing behind Zwei's ears. "You really are a cute little puppy. Such a good boy, too. And an adorab-"

There was the flash of a camera, and Yang looked up to see Ruby standing over her, her scroll in hand.

"...It's an ice cream cake, cookies and cream." Yang quickly answered. Ruby nodded, and turned around so Yang could see her delete the picture she had taken.

"I'm glad we could come to an agreement." Ruby smiled.

 **With the terrible threat of Ruby having a sorta-embarrassing photo dealt with, the day passes and goes. Time passes once more, and Yang finds herself doing a few things. By the end of the month, when Yang finally gets to meet up with her uncle Qrow, she had managed to...**

 **[X] Help Four out with her crusade against the White Fang, to significant success.**  
 **[X] Meet up with Ren and Nora at a fast food restaurant, in a small shopping district.**  
 **[X] Do well on her school assignment, and do a favour for a classmate while she was at it.**


	61. We Like Pizza

**[X] Meet up with Ren and Nora at a fast food restaurant, in a small shopping district.**

Yang muttered to herself as she wrote her essay for the school assignment, flicking back and forth between an email from Two containing a link to a report that had been prepared regarding Pacts based on the Undine and the girl, and her own little essay using it, and some others, as the basis.

She had a lot of information from that one journal article that had been published, but Yang needed more sources, so she ended up using very little of the information in it. Rather, she used the basic framework that had been reported, and then had to cross reference with other studies on souls to explain the process.

It was a surprisingly simple concept, at least in execution, though the mechanics behind it that explained _why_ made Yang's head spin a bit. A Pact was formed when a human and a non-human fused their souls together, which required both parties to accept the Pact in order to properly ensure the souls are fused. The process causes the two of them to form together to form a single soul, which somehow existed in two bodies at once...

...Somehow...

...And the process of creating the Pact had the side effect of restoring both parties to perfect health in the process. Apparently, the Undine had formed its Pact with the girl while she was injured and the girl was starving, or something. The exact details, Two hadn't shared, and Yang hadn't asked. She... Preferred not to think about it too hard.

Maybe Yang could cut down on how much animababble she'd need to do if she took into account why the process was so rare. She'd looked into non-humans a bit more recently to determine why they were so much rarer, and found a lot of interesting information there.

It was on record that they _did_ exist, sometimes in numbers. It's just that most non-humans were territorial or otherwise unable to co-exist with humanity in numbers, so either they lived in hiding somewhere that would be too dangerous to get to, like the bottom of a deep sea chasm, or the areas they live are outside the reach of humanity.

There were ones encountered now and then, rarely. The Cerberus' near Atlas, and Wyverns occasionally passed a Kingdom while migrating, but were usually high up enough that they either go unseen or were mistaken for some form of Grimm.

So she could totally include a section in her essay about why Pacts were so rare, and what kind of circumstances would be needed to create the circumstances where a Pact was made.

Considering how poorly known the concept was, the odds of someone running off to find a monster to make a Pact with was practically zero, especially considering they'd need to know where to look, and need to find a creature that knew _how_ a Pact was formed. And then the Pact Beast needed to have a motive for creating the Pact in the first place, which required it to be injured or dying or something.

And then there was the cost. The human party in the Pact did get something out of it, some sort of magic power, but had something taken from them. Which was apparently relating to something in the process that the report compared to Soul Crippling, the process in which the soul is permanently damaged in a manner that caused the body to fail in some way.

Yang should try and look around for some more comparisons. Was it because the fusion of the souls required breaking part of the human soul to properly give the non-human soul space to integrate itself for the fusion, or was it because part of the soul was re-purposed to keep up a link with the non-human entity?

...She better get a good mark on this essay, she was getting a headache just _thinking_ about putting in hard work.

She looked out the window to see the sun shining in the sky, and took a moment to contemplate what a great day it was outside.

...Forget it, she wasn't going to sit inside right now. Even if she'd been trying to keep her Aura higher in case Four wanted her to drop by and help with anything, she still needed to drop by the gym or something now and again so she could work on that.

Maybe she should see if Ren and Nora were doing anything, actually. She hadn't talked with them in a while, and never anything for too long. It might be fun to run by and get a pizza with them. And then maybe spar with them for a bit or something.

Quickly texting her dad and Ruby to let them know she was going out for a bit, Yang waited until she got confirmation from both, and then called Ren's number.

* * *

Standing in the pizza place, Yang looked across the road towards the weapons shop for a moment, noting for a moment how this place had basically everything. Pizza shop, sweets shop, weapon shop, beauty parlour...

Well, she was glad the place was out of the way a bit, because she got to enjoy it without having to walk through swarms of people. There were very few people, actually. There was a youngish Lion Faunus looking at the beauty parlour in contemplation, but apart from that, everyone was very obviously either heading towards a store or just walking though the street.

Well, except Yang. She was also just waiting out the front of the pizza place, standing around for Ren and Nora to arrive. They said they were free, and Nora needed to pick something out from the weapon shop anyway or something, so they would be dropping by already.

Yang looked around for a moment, before looking around and just watching the people walking back and forth.

There was a trio of three girls in black, white and grey walking down the street, heading for the weapon shop with purses at their side. Walking the other way, leaving the area apparently, was a tall man who looked towards the sweets shop but seemed to consider otherwise. A woman in a cloak made of feathers headed towards a clothes store nearby, and a girl with green hair exited that same building alongside a woman wearing red, looking uncomfortable in the fancy clothes she was wearing.

Yang turned her head to the left to keep watching people, and suddenly a paleish blue eye filled her vision.

"Gah!" Yang cried out, taking a step back as Nora suddenly grabbed her arm.

"Yang!" She declared. "It's been too long! I haven't seen you in, like, one million years!"

"More like one million seconds." Ren replied, pulling Nora away.

Nora looked at him. "You counted?"

"No."

Nora looked shocked. "Ren! You can't just _lie_ like that! A pure, innocent, naive but beautiful maiden such as I could be mislead by your lying words, you snake!"

Ren nodded, and stopped paying attention. "Yang, nice to see you."

"Good to see you two too." Yang replied. "Up for some pizza?"

"Sure." Ren replied. "What do you like?"

"Pineapple!" Declared Nora.

Yang nodded in agreement, and Ren took a moment to look at the two and sighed, reflecting that, while his opinions on pineapple pizza were _wrong_ and _stupid_ , he was smart enough to shut up about it.

"Mushroom?" Ren asked.

"I'm fine with that." Yang agreed.

Nora took a moment to consider. "...No capsicum. Not a fan."

"Nora I." Yang replied.

"No, I'm Nor..." The orange haired woman trailed off. "...Was that meant to be a pun?"

"Yep."

"Aha!" Nora declared. "D'you see that, Ren? I identified the pun this time! I'm improving."

"Good for you." Ren confirmed. "Shall we order, then?"

Yang nodded." Let's go get pizza."

She pushed the door open, and the three of them walked in, heading straight to the blonde boy standing at the cashier.

He stared straight ahead, his eyes dead, as he spoke in a monotone.

"Welcome to The Coire Ansic." The boy said. "May I take your order?"

Nora leaned over. "Ren, I think they're using zombies to feed us pizzas."

"Do you really care who gives you food?" Ren asked, speaking normally.

Nora kept whispering. "No. But zombies."

"I assure you I'm not a zombie." The blonde boy said.

"Oh yeah?" Nora asked. "What's your name then, not zombie!"

"Jau-"

He paused, turned back to a door marked staff only, and sighed. "Can I take your order please?"

"Three pizza's." Yang requested.

"Four!" Nora insisted.

"The Ultimate Supreme Experience with no capsicum, extra pineapple on two, none on one, and extra meat on everything." Ren requested.

The blonde boy wrote this down on a notepad quickly. "Order taken. That'll be thirty dollars."

Yang swiped her scroll and paid for the pizza.

"Thank you for your service." The boy said. "Please take a seat, your food will be ready shortly."

Yang nodded, and went out to pick a seat. She sat on one side of a table, and Ren and Nora sat on the other.

"So, how have you to been?" Yang asked. "Are you out of the denial stage yet?"

"Denial?" Nora asked.

Ren whispered something in her ear, and Nora went bright red.

"I-I'm not in denial!" She insisted." There's no romance here! Only friendship. Not every relationship between a boy and a girl has to feature romantic attraction!"

"Not every one." Yang nodded. "But you two-"

"-Are one of the ones with no romance!" Nora insisted." We've covered this Yang. Try to keep up."

Yang nodded. "Uh huh. _Sure_."

Nora sputtered, and Ren decided he had gotten enough entertainment to change the subject.

"There was an event recently, in case you didn't know." Ren said. "A few of the Beacon teachers were willing to give people an idea of what kind of performance you need to get into Beacon without going through the school system, and we did that for a bit."

"How'd it go?" Yang asked.

"They broke my baby!" Nora cried, grabbing Yang by the collar. "My precious Magnhild! I hit the twitchy small hamster teacher and it broke on his face!"

"Ah." Yang winced. "My... Condolences?"

"She's been like this all week." Ren noted. "She'll be really sad for five minutes, then its back to normal."

"I had to give my Magnhild to the people at the weapon shop." Nora weeped. "A-And they said they needed to have a look to work out the mechanics of it before they repaired it. My poor baby, in the hands of those cruel, uncaring weaponsmiths, no emotion or passion put into the craft as they tear her apart to see how she works..."

"There there." Ren said, patting her on the back.

Yang looked over to the weapon shop. "That one there?"

Nora nodded. "Yeah. That one. With all the suspicious masked people inside."

Yang looked over to the kitchen of the pizzeria. "When are they going to-"

She paused, and looked back towards the weapon shop, looking inside to see the girl in a mask in the window, holding a sword of some sort openly.

"...There's a robbery over there, isn't there?" Nora asked, also watching.

Yang didn't wait for an answer as she suddenly stood, heading for the door. Ember Celica unfolded around her hands as she ran out the door, heading towards the weapon shop.

As she crossed the street, she saw a glint of light reflecting off steel out of the corner of her eyes, and jumped to the side as the two balls attached over a chain caught around on of her legs and wrapped around it. One of the balls wrapped around and struck her other leg, hitting at her Aura , before the two balls suddenly unfolded and returned to the source.

Walking towards Yang was a teenage boy with a lion's mane, a Grimm-like mask covering his face.

White Fang.

"Stay out of this." The boy said. "Nobody needs to be hurt if you just-"

Yang shot him in the face, and he threw the chain-and-ball weapon, the Bolas, once again. Yang caught the weapon in the air, spun around to let it keep its momentum, and fired back as she threw it forward. The weapon wrapped around the boy, who gestured towards them to have the two stop before they could wrap around him.

It was still enough time for Yang to reach melee range, and slam the lion Faunus' head into the ground while firing Ember Celica to knock him down faster. He cried out as his Aura strained, and Yang held him down for a moment.

"Didja get started without me?" Nora asked from behind Yang. "...Oh, I don't have Magnhild. Hey, can I keep this one busy at least?"

"Sure." Yang replied, and Nora stepped forward to pin down the lion Faunus.

Ren and Yang looked at each other for a moment, as Ren got out his guns.

"You first?" He asked.

"Stay back here." Yang replied. "Shoot if it looks like someone' getting away, or if I'm in trouble."

Before Ren could reply, Yang rushed forward again, stepping into the store.

There were four people in the shop, all teenager girls. Two of them were in the back, looking through different dust supplies, while the other two stood near the shopkeeper, the old man sitting without any reaction to the gun and sword pointed at him.

The door alarm chirped as Yang walked through, and everyone turned to her.

The girl with the red sword, and cat ears on her head, reacted first.

"You have one warning." She said, turning her head so that Yang could see the burn scars covering the right side of her face. "Leave."

"Or what?" Yang asked.

The girl lowered the sword from the shopkeepers neck, and walked towards Yang.

"Or we'll reach an ending neither of us wants."

Yang looked into the eyes of the mask, and the White Fang girl looked back.

There was no way she was backing out. She'd faced down worse than four girls her age, and she needed to be stronger anyway, so a test of her abilities wouldn't be a bad thing.

Looking at the terrorist, Yang took a moment to consider her next move.

 **[X] All out assault, immediately. Try to take down as many people as soon as possible. Fight them all. Win. It's not like it'd be too hard.**  
 **[X] ...She's not going to be able to talk them down, but maybe she could try distracting them by asking why they joined the White Fang.**  
 **[X] Pretend to leave, then jump through the window to ambush them. Which they might suspect, but if she tells Ren to shoot at them first...**


	62. Daylight Robbery

**[X] All out assault, immediately. Try to take down as many people as soon as possible. Fight them all. Win. It's not like it'd be too hard.**

The girl in black took another step forward, and Yang leaned down, firing Ember Celica downwards to propel herself forward.

The girl slashed upwards as she reacted to the movement, and just before Yang made contact with the blade, she fired Ember Celica again, shooting herself backwards again while trying to hit the girl with the red sword. She disappeared in blur of a black shadow, which Yang didn't get a good look at before it dispersed from the shot, and she briefly saw the girl standing near the shopkeeper step away from the projectile before Yang saw the girl with the red sword flash in front of her again.

The blade clashed against Yang's Aura, slicing through it and doing shocking damage to it, and Yang decided immediately she wasn't going to risk getting hit too many more times.

Yang grabbed her opponent's blade as she fell back, noticing as she did so that the girl seemed inexperienced. She stumbled forward as she tried to keep her grip, betraying a lack of familiarity, and as Yang landed on her feet, she managed to keep in range.

Stepping closer to her foe while pulling at the sword, Yang grabbed the black haired girl on the face, and flared her Aura. Flames burst from her, and the cat Faunus cried out as she let go of the sword and coiled back.

Yang smirked, as she threw the sword to the side. "Not too fond of-"

The Faunus tackled Yang, knocking her into a wall covered in weapons, which collapsed down on the two of them. Yang reached out to grab her and keep grappling, but her hand wrapped around and crushed a shadow, and the girl stepped away as Yang stood.

"Tiliqua!" The girl called, turning her head to the back of the room. Yang followed it, to the two girls taking dust crystals. "Give me a hand!"

One of the girls plucked a handful of black and purple crystals from a wall, and threw them at Yang. She raised her hand to bat them away, but the crystals detonated on impact, forming a gravitational pull around her. Yang's arm slammed her into the ground, back into the pile of weapons that cut into her Aura, and she struggled against it for a moment.

The girl in black went back for her sword, and Yang raised her other arm to fire Ember Celica. It landed at the sword, forcing the girl to jump away as the sword was blasted, crashing through the window and going into the distance.

A shadow blocked Yang's view for a moment, and she turned up to see the girl who had answered to Tiliqua looking down at her. An elongated blue tongue left her mouth for a moment, as Tiliqua blew a raspberry before gesturing downwards. The force pulling Yang's arm down intensified, more and more, causing her to cry out as she felt the concrete on the floor rippling from the pressure.

"I can do this all day." Tiliqua claims. "So hey, why don't we call this off, I take those pretty gauntlets of yours, and-"

Yang shot her in the face, and Tiliqua stumbled back, before firing the other gauntlet of Ember Celica. The force was just enough to jerk her out of the gravitational field, and as Yang rolled on the ground from the angle, she quickly got to her feet.

"Is that all you have?" Yang asked, as she quickly looked around. The last girl at the back of the room had stopped collecting dust, and was just watching. Meanwhile, the cat Faunus had claimed another, random weapon from the shop. The girl holding a gun to the shopkeepers head still hadn't done anything, though she seemed agitated.

"First time I get to try that with gravity dust in a year and she just-"

Yang shot Ember Celica backwards again, getting within range in a heartbeat, before grabbing Tiliqua's head and slamming it down into Yang's knee. Ember Celica fired again as Yang pushed her down, and the lizard Faunus cried out.

An arm wrapped around Yang's neck and tightened, trying to cut off her oxygen supply. Yang jumped back and slammed her holder into the ground under her weight, burning up her Aura more in the process.

There was a sudden flash, and Yang felt her face thrown into the wall.

Was this the Faunus girl's Semblance?

Yang reached back and fired Ember Celica, ignoring the damage done to her own Aura by the point blank detonation, and when she felt the arm around her neck loosen, Yang forced her way free.

Turning around as soon as she did so, Yang swung a fist and struck the cat Faunus in the face. The Grimm mask flew off her face, and as Yang struck again, she found herself hitting the black clad girl's dark shadow. An arm caught at Yang's elbow, and in a sudden show of force, Yang was thrown out the window.

The glass around her shattered, driving into her Aura, and Yang hit the ground a moment later. Stumbling to her feet, Yang prepared herself for another attack, but noted how it never came.

She looked around, and saw Ren standing at her side.

"So, how did it go?" He asked.

Yang looked up to the window, and saw the cat girl looking back at her, with a random gun ready for the instant she saw Yang move.

Well, no need to disappoint, then?

She ran again, ignoring the bullets that struck her in the face, as she approached, jumped up in preparation to jab the black haired Faunus in the face. The Faunus got ready to parry the fist, and Yang fired Ember Celica.

The explosion forced the terrorist back, and Yang pushed onwards, landing inside the window and going full attack.

"Enough of this!" One of the girls declared. "I have the dust. Let's go, Blake."

The girl with black hair caught Yang's fist and then was suddenly behind her, throwing off Yang's momentum by pulling the arm behind her, and looked at the girl who had spoken.

"While we have a chaser?" The girl in black asked. "Great plan."

Yang jerked her arm free from the girl, who was apparently Blake, and pun around to hit her again. Blake disappeared into a dark shadow and appeared to Yang's side again, grabbing her hair and pulling her off balance.

Yang snarled, and burst into flames again. The black haired girl let go off Yang again, but slammed down the gun she was holding, hitting Yang in the side of the head to force her down.

The girl in yellow bounced, putting her hands down to be able to spin upwards again and land on her feet.

Damn it, she wasn't doing good enough. This was _one person_ , one that looked roughly her own age at that. Even if it looked like she'd been through something rough with those burns of hers, if she couldn't beat _this_ , how could she be supposed to defeat _anything_ that was a threat?

"Enough of this." Said the girl in black. "We've been here long enough. The proper authorities should be on the wa-"

Yang closed her eyes to concentrate, before letting out a shout as her Aura flared outwards explosively, and the girl in black stepped back in surprise. Yang stepped herself in the stomach as she rose, bringing her Aura down, before setting off in a charge with increased speed. The girl in black left a shadow behind as she appeared at the side, and Yang shot it to stop her forward momentum that way, barging into her target a moment later.

That Semblance was a pain, but there had to be a limit to it. As the girl disappeared for a second time, Yang fired Ember Celica downwards, throwing herself upwards as the girl reappeared to the side. Pointing it at her target, Yang made a motion to fire, and turned on the safety on her gun at the last second.

Given that the safety was _inside_ the gauntlet, there was no outward sign that the weapon had been tampered with. For all her target knew, Yang was out of ammo. Which was perfect. Because as Yang hit the ground and flipped the safety off again, it meant she wouldn't be expecting Yang to be able to fire again.

The girl with black hair pulled a blade off a wall, and dashed in close to Yang again. Yang caught the arm holding the small blade, more of a dagger than anything, and let them struggle for a moment.

"I'll buy time." Blake ordered. "Get the dust-"

Yang fired, and the explosion hit Blake straight in the jaw. Her Aura strained, but held, and Yang learned from her mistake immediately by keeping up the pressure.

There had to be a limit on the shadow running trick. Maybe it was tiring, or had a limit on how many times it could be used without a cooldown, but it definitely wasn't an automatic thing. Meaning if Yang just kept up the pressure-

She stopped thinking so hard as she noticed Blake twitch, and followed throw with another punch meant to keep her off balance.

The instant Blake regained her footing, she'd be out of reach and ready to dodge all over again. Yang had her off balance, now she just had to focus on keeping it that way.

Her knee came up to knock Blake off her feet, knocking her off balance again, before Yang caught the cat Faunus' arm and slammed her into the ground again.

There was a light to the side, and suddenly a gale force wind flew through the shop. Yang looked over to see the girl with the blue tongue raising her hand, as fragments of a wind dust crystal hovered in front of her. The wind focused, slamming Yang into the wall of the shop.

"You take the crystals!" Another voice called. "You're the faster one, you'll actually get away in time."

Yang heard a faint siren in the distance, as she stood, only to be pinned to the wall by the girl who had been, up to that point, holding the shopkeeper hostage.

"You stay here." The girl said. "That was pretty impressive stuff, but if you move, I-"

There was a thud, and the girl collapses as the old man dropped a familiar looking hammer on her head. As she fell, the old man wiped some sweat from his brow, and Yang looked towards the door to see Blake run out it.

Swearing, she jumped out to pursue, only for the two other girls to step forth.

One of them, the one who Yang didn't recognised, looked at the old man and hissed. The skin around her neck expanded, forming a frill around her head that was probably meant to be intimidating, but honestly just looked kinda silly. Weird, but silly.

Yang closed a fist, as she heard commotion from outside.

Tiliqua stepped forward, pulling a sling out of her pocket, before striking out with it to form it into a whip. The whip struck out at Yang, who caught it, and quickly found it trying to snake around her wrist and form a lasso.

Undeterred, Yang pulled, firing at the same time to increase the force behind the pull, and Tiliqua was pulled forward, allowing Yang to slam her into the wall. The girl with the frill around her neck pulled out her weapon, a sickle on a chain, and swung it around for a moment. Yang braced for impact when the girl threw it at her, but then the chain grew tight and lurched to the side.

Blinking, Yang watched her run out the door, and leaped out the window to stop her.

The sickle caught around Nora, still holding down the boy with the lion's mane, and pulled her to the side. The boy got to his feet.

"Anything I should know?" Asked the girl with the features of a frill-necked lizard.

"Boss lady has a chaser." He replied. "Kid in green spotted her when she went for the sword, waited until she turned a corner so she wouldn't know she was being pursued. Probably knows by now."

The sirens got louder, as Yang stared off against the two. Her eyes flickered to inside the shop, where she noticed the shop keeper sneaking into a safe room in the back.

...It'd be easy to fight these two, maybe even take them down. But then the police would be here and she'd need to answer a few of their questions before she got to chase down the cat girl. And it meant hoping that Ren didn't get into a fight and kept the trail.

On the other hand, the shopkeeper was safe now, and Blake did have everything the White Fang were trying to take. She could go after them, give Ren a hand. But that meant leaving these two here, giving them time to get their allies out. Four might want to talk to them.

Nora? She was good and all, but she also had no weapon on her. They couldn't just split up and hope for the best.

After a moment, Yang-

 **[X] Pursued Blake and the Dust Crystals.**  
 **[X] Stayed to fight those left behind.**


	63. Failure Bound

**[X] Pursued Blake and the Dust Crystals.**

Looking at the two White Fang terrorists in front of her, Yang took a moment to consider.

Damn it. She'd tried to hit that Blake girl, but now she was getting away. With the Dust crystals that the White Fang had wanted so badly, enough to prioritise getting them out.

She'd failed to stop Blake, or the main goal of the criminals here.

...Well, not entirely. It wasn't too late to give chase. Even if it meant letting these ones get away...

"Nora." Yang said, as she stared down the lion boy, with his bolas. "Which way did Ren go?"

"Down the alleys." Nora replied. "What are you-"

"These people don't matter." Yang continued, before speaking up so the two Faunus could hear her better. "They won't chase us if they want time to get their allies out, so let's go."

Nora nodded, which Yang noticed out of the corner of her eye, and after staring down her opponents for a moment, Yang noticed the lion boy turn back to the shop, towards the fallen comrades of his.

Taking the chance, Yang turned and ran into the alleyways, disappearing into it. A whip cracked out behind her, and Yang dodged away from the crack by firing Ember Celica to force herself out of the way. Jumping into the alleyway, Yang looked back to see Nora catch and throw away a bolas, and briefly saw the lion boy who had thrown it run into the shop.

The sirens grew louder as Yang ran into the alleyway, and Nora followed her a moment later.

"Do you have any better way of tracking Ren?" Yang asked.

Nora pulled out her scroll. "We set up our scrolls up with the same account because Ren said there was something that means one scroll can find the other. I dunno, I wasn't paying attention. I think if his scroll is still on him, I'll be able to find him? Or something? Did I just dream that explanation again?""

"...No, that can work." Yang said, moving around a corner. "Do you have the FindMe app?"

Nora flicked through, then ran into a wall, dropping her scroll.

"...Ow." She moaned. "That wasn't where I left it..."

Yang bit her lip as she ran back, looking back for a moment to confirm the two Faunus weren't giving chase.

Picking up the scroll, as Nora got to her feet, Yang pressed a few buttons, and a map opened up. There were two blips, one stationary and one moving in erratic patterns in a nearby area, full of alleyways and thin streets that made it easy to bounce around and hide.

...That was going to be frustrating, but at least Yang had her answer.

"Here." Yang said, throwing Nora her scroll. "Let's go."

She set off into a run, and Nora followed a moment later.

She should be able to win this. Ren went into pursuit, she had Nora at her side, and Yang herself wasn't exactly in a bad way. Her Aura was bad, but with three people attacking Blake, even if Nora was down a weapon, they should be able to keep enough pressure on Blake to keep her from using her Semblance well enough.

As Yang entered into an alleyway, she noted the marks on the walls where bullets had hit them, as well as scatter trash and a steel bin that had been thrown to the side.

Definitely a fight that went down here. Yang kept running in, ducking around another corner, and heard a commotion nearby. Making a beeline for that this time, she looked around, before realising the bullets were being fired _above_ her.

It took a second for her to run up to the roof while she fired Ember Celica down, and she landed on it with a resounding thud.

Ren and Blake were there, dancing around each other. Ren was the slower, Blake using her Semblance to jump around him and always be just out of reach when he was out of reach. Ren himself wasn't as dodgy, but Blake was still using that red sword, and Ren was able to just keep deflecting and parrying.

She wasn't trained in that weapon, for some reason. Which was weird, and probably had a story behind it. But honestly? It didn't matter.

It was a weakness she could exploit.

Taking a brief break to reload Ember Celica, Yang looked up in time to see Blake barrelling for her. Smirking, the yellow haired teen slammed her head forward, smashing into the black haired Faunus, and making her stumble back for a moment. The blade swept to the side as Blake fell back, slamming into Yang's side and cutting through her Aura, and Blake disappeared into a black shadow again as Ren stepped forward.

The boy in green shot to the side, where Blake reappeared, and she parried with her blade.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to stand down?" Ren asked, as Nora clawed her way onto the roof. Her hand slipped, and she flailed around off the edge for a moment, before punching through the wall to hold herself in place.

"I can't afford to." Blake said, before flashing into a shadow again. She appeared at the side of the building, and as Nora climbed onto the roof, Blake fell off of it again.

Nora groaned as she watched. "But I just got up here..."

Yand ran after her, leaping off the building. As she fell, she noticed Blake reach into a steel bin, and pull out the bag of Dust crystals she had grabbed from the store.

Ren and Nora fell a moment after Yang. Blake dashed to the side, and smashed through a window.

Yang bit her lip. Damn it, why can't she just _stay still._

She leaped into the window following Blake, and punched forward. Her fist hit a Dust crystal, and Yang had just enough time to see Blake looking down at her, with the sack half filled, before the Ice dust suddenly expanded. It hit another crystal on the floor at her feet, which hit more and more crystals and before long, shattered out to freeze her in place.

She closed her eyes and let her Aura burn outwards, melting the ice around her. Just as she was making progress, though, the red blade cut through the ice and struck at her neck.

Her Aura strained more and more, falling below half, and the blade was pressed in even more as Yang struggled against it.

"You just don't know when to quit." Blake hissed. "This would have been so much easier if you'd just given up, you know? I didn't want to have to do this."

Yang groaned, as her Aura kept flaring up to melt the ice. The girl drove the blade in more.

"Y-You didn't want this?" Yang asked, as the ice around her mouth melted. "Funny that. I thought you were the one who started it."

"...Fair enough." Blake replied. "But I can't let you continue. Not now. Not when we're so close."

Yang considered, for a moment, asking _what_ they were so close to. But there wasn't really a need, she felt. For one thing, Blake wouldn't give away her plan that easily.

For the other, Blake didn't seem to be looking behind her.

Another window shattered as Nora leapt in, slamming into Yang and pushing her into the ice. The ice cracked, and between that and the earlier melting, it was easy enough for Yang to let out a cry and burst free of the restraint. Her head shot forward, straining her Aura against the red blade before hitting Blake in the head, and she charged on.

There was a blur of black as Blake disappeared again, leaving the bag of dust crystals behind again. Her sword swept around and greatly brought down Yang's Aura, turning her momentum against her and forcing her to the ground. She dashed out the window a moment later, and Yang bounced off the floor.

"Get the dust back." Yang told Nora, as she turned towards the window. "I got this."

She broke through the window again, and saw Blake sheath her sword as she dashed around a corner.

"Hey!" Yang called, as she followed. She'd come this far, she wasn't going to give up now-

She turned the corner, and heard the shot of a gun. Blake's hand came up, holding the sword, with explosive force. A fiery trail followed the blade as it cut through the air, shattering Yang's Aura and slicing into her chest. Blood flew into the air, and Yang felt the snap of bones.

"...I'm sorry." She heard vaguely, as she hit the ground. She raised a hand to fire at her attacker before they could escape, but the dust round broke at the edge of the blade, as the girl in black sheathed it..

"But I can't afford to fail now." The terrorist continued. "Not with her still out there."

She was replaced with a black shadow, and Yang felt a sudden pain in her arm, and looked at it to see Blake forcing the hilt of the sword into the bone.

"You'll survive this." She promised. Then the sheath shook with the shot of a gun, and the hilt slammed into the bone. Yang screamed in pain, her right hand moving to grab the left. Her eyes closed as she concentrated on ignoring the pain, looking up to face off against her attacker even now.

Blake was gone by the time she looked up.

No.

 _No_.

She _wasn't being beaten here._

She distantly heard Ren and Nora calling her name, but ignored them, instead focusing on getting to her feet. She felt a pain in her chest and arm, but also in her stomach and leg. She ignored it.

One person.

 _One person._

What kind of protector was she supposed to be if she couldn't even beat _one person._

She wasn't stopping now. She'd gone through worse. She'd lost those fights, granted, but that just mean she needed to do better _now_. Arm busted? She had another one. Chest hurt? Who cared. Her ribs were only slightly cracked and her vital organs were still intact. She could still fight.

And if she _could_ still fight, the question became, why wasn't she fighting _right now?_

She took a step forward, and suddenly felt a hand grab her good arm. Yang looked back, and saw Nora holding her back.

"You're bleeding!" She exclaimed. "Look at you, your Aura-"

"Let me go." Yang demanded.

Ren stepped forward. "Yang, if-"

She didn't have _time_ for this.

Ember Celica fired, and Nora doubled over with the bullet hitting her in the stomach. Between that and the shock of being shot at _all_ , Nora's grip loosened, letting Yang break herself free and dash out to catch up to Blake again.

She stumbled, with the sudden intensifying pain on her scar, and in that moment, Ren was able to get ahead of her. He grabbed her shoulder and shoved her into a wall.

"What was that?" He asked. "Nora tries to stop you from going out and getting into a fight in a state like this, and you just shoot her? Why's it so important to you that you win _this_ fi..."

He trailed off, eyes wide. Yang ignored whatever revelation Ren thought he was having, pulling free and trying to run.

She needed this, she _needed_ this. She needed to be strong enough to protect Ruby, and if she wasn't strong enough for _this_ , after all the training she'd gone through since fighting Dito? How was she _ever_ supposed to be strong enough for anything? If-

"If only you could win one fight."

Ren's voice cut into Yang's train of thought, and she paused, looking up at him.

"I got that right, then?" He asked, looking melancholic. "Yeah, I know how that feels. Maybe not entirely, since you never ran away from a fight. But you're tired of it, aren't you? Bad things happening, and you can't stop it?"

Yang breathed for a moment, and suddenly realised how hard it was to do so.

"...I'm sorry, Yang." Ren said. "She's gone. You won't find her. And you need help more than anything, you're missing a lot of blood."

Damn it, _no_ , she was _so close_. Yang looked away and tried to step away from Ren and Nora again, only for Nora to catch her shoulder this time.

"Lemme go." Yang slurred, speech suddenly difficult for her. There was a siren going on nearby, drawing close, and Yang tried to pull away from Nora.

"Stop it!" Nora said. "You're hurt, Yang, stop trying to-"

Yang batted her arm away, and in a fit of frustration, Nora grabbed the side of Yang's head.

With a sudden flurry of motion, Yang felt it bash into a wall, and everything went black.

 **Hours pass before Yang regains consciousness, finding herself in a hospital room again. Who's the first person at her side when she wakes up?**

 **[X] Ruby**  
 **[X] Four**  
 **[X] Ren and Nora**


	64. Poetic Justice

**[X] Four**

Yang's head hurt, as she regained consciousness. It took her a moment to realise she was in a hospital, and another moment for her to realise why.

She'd failed.

Not only that, she'd failed to the point where the people at her side had to physically stop her from failing worse. She had her Aura torn though and the damn terrorist _got away_ and she just...

Damn it.

Why wasn't she good enough? After everything she'd been training towards, to get stronger, to get better...

And she couldn't even beat one White Fang member?

This wasn't working. Just, wasting her day going to school and talking to people and _not getting stronger,_ it wasn't _enough_. She got in one fight with a White Fang member and walked out with a broken arm. If something like Five taking Ruby happened again, how was Yang supposed to be of any help?

And she couldn't just assume nothing like that would happen again. Of _course_ something like that was going to happen again. She couldn't assume nothing was going to happen. She assumed that things would be over when she got back home after the whole school trip thing, and then she found out Ruby had been kidnapped when she was gone. She assumed things would be quiet after _that_ , and then a terrorist breaks her arm.

She can't keep assuming that things would just quiet down. If she assumed things were going to be fine, then something was going to happen and she wouldn't be able to stop it because she wasn't ready for it.

It was better to be safe than sorry. It was better if she was strong enough to make sure _nothing happened_ , so that even if something was going to happen, it wouldn't amount to anything.

Except she wasn't able to do that. She just wasn't _enough_ to do that.

Groaning, she tried to sit up, putting her arm down in the process. It stung slightly, but not too bad.

Well, that was to be assumed. It was just a broken arm, when it happened. A proper hospital, rather than a medical bay in an airship, would be able to fix it up a bit before long. Even if she couldn't put too much pressure on it, it'd only take a few hours to repair the bone.

Which immediately made Yang worry again. A few hours. That was ages ago. Surely, her dad and Ruby would have been informed. They were going to hear about her getting injured again, and find out how _weak_ she was, and...

 _Damn it._

Punching the mattress next to her, Yang closed her eyes and drove her nails into her palm.

Why was she so weak?

"...Hey."

Yang turned towards the voice, and looked over at the open door. There, clad in green, was Four.

The Intoner looked at Yang, concerned, as she stood at the door.

"Can I come in?" She asked.

Yang turned her head. "...Yeah, whatever."

Four stepped in. "I heard about what happened."

"Let me guess." Yang said. "One organised for people to tell you about anything White Fang related?"

"...Well, that, and she knows the people who own this hospital."

Yang blinked. "...Is there anyone your sister _doesn't_ know?"

Four sighed. "I really don't know. It's not uncommon that she ends up spending all day going from meeting to meeting talking to people, to organise her big plan."

Yang considered for a moment, asking about this big plan, but then put the idea out of her mind. She didn't really need to know.

"...What happened to Ren and Nora?" She asked.

Four sighed, as she sat on a chair beside Yang. "They're fine. I took steps to keep names out of the news, don't worry. Ren was worried about you, said you were getting a bit... Well, we'll get to that. Point is, they're fine. Nora says she saved you your third of the pizza's, if you want them."

"I'd kind of forgotten about that, actually." Yang noted.

"I can imagine." Four replied. "Those... The White Fang members in the Dust shop, they got away. The old man and your friends managed to give me a good description of the five Faunus there, but I wanted to see if you recognised anything about them."

Yang thought on it, for a moment. "...Mostly the one with the red sword, I saw. There was a girl with a blue tongue, a girl with some sort of neck frill thing, and a boy with a lion's mane. But it was mostly the girl with burns."

Four looked away from Yang, out the window. "Yeah, people noticed that. You knocked her mask off, and I think I recognise the design. There's a variation, you know? Some based on certain Grimm, some just made to resemble. Some with certain designs, certain markings. I recognised the mask left on the scene."

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I've seen it before. It's identical to the mask worn by the man who killed the previous matriarch of the Schnee Family."

Yang looked over at Four. "What?"

"I didn't believe it myself at first, I'll be honest. The exact mask was shattered when I brought the killer to justice. But the one found on the site was an exact replica."

"...Maybe it's nothing." Yang suggested.

"I don't think so." Four replied. "It's significant, to a degree. The easier explanation for it is that the White Fang produced that mask as a statement, as a reminder. But..."

Yang watched Four trail off for a moment, before clearing her throat.

"...Sorry." Four replied. "Just a rather... Displeasing memory. I don't think that explanation quite cuts it, because I think I know that Faunus specifically."

Her tone became frosty at the end, vaguely angry.

"I'm sensing a story here." Yang interjected.

Four looked out the window for a moment, eyes of steel, before she replied.

"...She was with the man who wore that mask at first." She explained. "When I fought him. She got caught in the blast while I was trying to take out the priority targets, but managed to get away. Don't ask me too much about the story. Just... I don't pretend to understand how those people think, but her perspective on the events, from what I grasped, were skewed."

"Skewed how?"

Four sighed. "It's a long story, but she tried to claim the moral high ground. Her exact wording was enough that she distracted me long enough for her to get away. I don't want to talk about it."

"...I get it." Yang replied. "Some things can be hard to talk about. She's tricky with words? I just won't let her talk next time I run into her."

Four smiled. "That's a good attitude."

Yang nodded for a moment, then looked down again.

"...Shame about this, though." Yang replied. "I mean, I've healed, but when dad and Ruby hear about this, they're going to freak."

Four smiled. "Oh, don't worry about that, my dear friend. The people in this hospital have to listen to me 'cause One can cut their funding if they don't. I had them keep things quiet. All your dad knows is that there was an attack and you got dragged here because you got hit a bit and everyone wanted to be cautious. They'll only know what you tell them, Yang."

The yellow haired teen blinked. "Thanks?"

"Don't question it." Four replied. "You got hurt, but I'm told you leaped from your peaceful day the instant you saw trouble. I couldn't let you be inconvenienced by an act of Justice like that."

Four's posture froze into a pseudo-pose for a moment.

"Yeah, thanks." Yang nodded. "You're... I owe you one."

"No, don't." Four insisted. "You already offered to help me with the White Fang before this. Though, if you wanted to back out, I understand. I hope I can rely on you, though."

"Depends on how much my dad overreacts." Yang admitted. "Don't worry, I'll try."

Four nodded, and there was silence for a moment.

"I feel like we got off track, a bit." Four said after a moment. "Can you tell me a few more things about the girl with the burns?"

"She had a red sword." Yang explained. "Fired it out of the sheath to do more damage. Lit it on fire. Semblance was some sort of dodge-decoy thing. She was fast. Way too fast for my liking."

"Hm." Four mused. "I didn't really get to see her fight much last time I encountered her, but there was definitely some sort of shadow Semblance thing going on. Speed... Would make sense, for her. Or at least being a dodger. Probably means she's fragile if you hit her hard enough."

Yang nodded. "Yeah. The other four weren't as big deals, I think. Lion guy threw a ball on a rope on another ball, which he could apparently stop from wrapping around himself. Blue tongue could... I don't know. She used crystals more than anything, I think. I don't remember anything beyond that, I'm sorry."

"Are you sure?" Four asked.

Yang mused, for a moment.

"...Blake wasn't used to using a sword." She decided. "The cat Faunus, I mean. She wasn't able to use any skill with it, and it was easy enough to disarm her when she wasn't pulling an ambush. Like she hadn't used it much before?"

Four nodded. "That..."

She trailed off, looking into the distance, before changing the topic.

"So, anyway." Four said. "Ren's a bit concerned that you throwing yourself into fights. Says you might think you have something to prove?"

Yang paused for a moment.

He did seem to realise something at the end of the incident, before Nora knocked her out. And...

...Thinking about it, after the burning village thing, Ren did say something about how he was tired of running. Or something along those lines. And he had run off to try and find the mercenary leader, and got hit bad because he was on his own.

Maybe he was seeing a bit of that, in Yang's actions.

But this was different. Yang wasn't going to run into a fight just so it didn't feel like she was running away from a fight. She was going to run into a fight so she can get strong enough where she didn't need to run.

"It's fine." Yang cut in. "I lost the fight. Yeah, it happens a lot. Too often. But it's fine."

"...If you say so." Four sighed. "I hope you know what you're doing, Yang. You did good, even if you didn't catch the cat girl. She didn't get any of the Dust crystals. That's a victory, you know. The criminal has been thwarted, and thus, Justice prevails."

"You're big on justice, aren't you?" Yang asked.

"Well, of course." Four replied defensively, crossing her arms. "Justice is Justice. It's the rule by which man lives to remain moral. Justice, morality, its what separates man from beast and Grimm. Justice needs to be upheld, for the sake of society. To those who would slip, a sword of Justice to show them the path, an example and one who makes examples, is enough to have them strive to be better."

"I didn't take you for the philosophical type." Yang noted.

Four scoffed. "This is just common sense, isn't it? If a dog is vicious, it attacks when angered. When a human is vicious and angered, the idea of Justice shall bring them in line. Some by punishment. Some by deterrence. Some, because they will not seek to be unjust. Justice rules the hearts and minds of humanity, and thus shall it lead."

"That seems about right." Yang nodded.

Four nodded. "Exactly! You get it!"

Yang smiled at Four's enthusiasm. It was weird. Four was the older, but as soon as the conversation turned, her tone became almost childish. Kind of like Ruby talking about the weapon she wanted to make, really.

"Anyway, I should probably go." Four sighed, after a moment. "Work to do. I need to find the White Fang before they can strike again. I managed to find a suspect earlier today, and while he didn't seem to know anyone, I was able to get some sort of clueclue."

"Hm?" Yang asked.

"He said that he was going to meet another member of the White Fang in a few days." Four continued. "At some kind of club fighting event? He clammed up after that. I left him in a cell to sweat for a bit. There was enough smoke last I checked that I should get something out of him..."

...Club fighting?

"I think I might know what he's talking about." Yang said.

Four raised an eyebrow.

"There's a Fight Club I ran into a while back." Yang explained. "While trying to get information to find your, ugh... Younger? Sister? Five."

Four looked down at herself for a moment. She muttered under her breath for a moment, seemingly agitated. She went on for a while, and Yang vaguely heard Four saw something about flaying flesh, before she cleared her throat.

"Five is my younger sister, yes." Four replied, sounding somewhat bitter. "Say it. I know you're thinking it."

"...I don't want to be rude." Yang said. "Sorry. I didn't mean to... Sorry."

Four breathed. "No, no, it's fine. Just a sore spot. Go on."

"Uh... Okay." Yang nodded. "I got information by helping a club owner with bets in a Fight Club. I know the place and how to get in. It'd be a bit much to just go in and start something, but if you can find out how to identify this guy..."

Four paused, then nodded.

"Yeah, that could work." Four agreed. "I'll light a fire under the prisoner to get him to sing, get out information on the who without focusing on the where so he thinks he's not giving away too much. Will you be able to give me a hand there? I could try and think of an excuse to borrow you from your father for a bit. A training exercise or wanting a tour around the city or something? I'll think about it. Do you think it can work?"

Yang pried herself up off the hospital bed, feeling her bad arm for a moment. It had healed alright, enough to throw a punch if she didn't mind some pain. She might be able to do this...

 **[X] It could work. Yang should help Four.**  
 **[X] It would probably be best not to try it.**


	65. I'm Fine

**[X] It could work. Yang should help Four.**

Sitting around out by the front lobby of the hospital, Yang waited.

"They should be here soon." Four advised. "Remember, official story is that people took you here as a precaution mainly, and then I kept you here for a few hours to get your side of the story. Ren and Nora might contradict my story, but I give very big bribes. I think Nora'll appreciate the best in hammering technology."

"...Hammering technology?" Yang asked.

"I don't know how hammers work, I use claws." Four admitted. "For all I know, a good hammer requires the blood of a virgin the be bleed over it on a full moon."

"I don't think it's a hard concept to understand. You hit things with heavy things." Yang pointed out.

"Then how do you improve it?" Four asked. "Do you make the heavy thing heavier? Lighter? I don't know."

Yang shrugged. "Maybe it mechanises the hammering so the weapon increases the momentum? Gravity Dust programmed to make the heavy thing lighter?"

Four frowned. "But don't you need the heavy thing to be heavy when you hammer with it so you can hammer good? I don't..."

"I know!"

Yang and Four turned towards the door, as Ruby stepped in.

"It depends on the activation charge for the gravity Dust." She explained. "As of the latest production, the metal is treated with gravity Dust to react to it. It doesn't work as well if there's not some gravity Dust to be consumed, but with the right Aura application working with the mechanism, the weapon can be shifted between lighter and heavier. In fact, the newest technology behind the machine handles the Aura work by itself. A sensor in the hammer means that it can detect when it's about to hit someone and use the gravity-treated steel to be light while in motion then intensify into being really really heavy just before it hits something. Improvements into this technology would increase the rate of the change, and eventually, it's theorised that the right use of Gravity dust should be able to maintain both positions at once, making it easy to move but still incredibly damaging to hit with-"

"Breath, Ruby." Yang advised. "I know this is a hospital but it'd take time for them to get out something to put more oxygen in you, and dad must be fretting enough."

Four frowned. "Why would that be exclusively hammering technolog- Ah, there could be a point there, a hammer would have a big section in it that could be filled with more mechanisms than a sword, more room to make the hammering work..."

She trailed off, as Taiyang stepped forward.

"Hey, dad." Yang greeted.

"Are you alright?" He asked. "No serious wounds?"

"Arm hurts a bit." Yang noted. "But nothing too bad. It'll be fine by tomorrow, probably."

"Sorry for keeping her so long." Four lied seamlessly. "I wanted to be thorough. I've been looking for one of these terrorists for a while, and wanted to make sure I got as much information out of her as possible. This Blake... I want to make sure I can bring her, more than the others, to Justice."

Four gave a little pose again, throwing her hair back, and Ruby stared at her for a moment.

"Speaking of which." Four continued. "I don't suppose I could ask a favour? I've got a meeting with an informant in a few days, and I was wondering if I could borrow Yang to be with me. Since Yang managed to get a look at the terrorists, I was hoping that maybe she'd be able to help me with examining the area in case anyone near the meeting site looked like they were also with the White Fang."

Taiyang was quiet, as he looked at Yang out of the corner of his eye.

"...I don't know." He said. "If you're worried about a trap, I don't know if Yang would-"

"It's fine." Yang interrupted. "She just wants me to keep an eye out, right? She's an Intoner line Two, so she should be able to deal with any problems. I'd just get in the way in a brawl."

Taiyang looked over to Four.

"I'd keep her safe, don't worry." She stated.

"If you say so." Taiyang sighed. "If Yang's okay to go, and you can keep her out of danger-"

"Hey." Yang joked. "I can handle myself."

Ruby looked over towards her, with a slightly worried expression, and Yang's hand clenched.

Her sister was worried. Of course she was. Yang'd gotten into enough losing fights that Ruby would be worried about her getting into any fight. And given the _last time_ Ruby had seen Yang in a fight...

Yang had to stop herself, from reaching for her stomach, as the pain returned.

...Of course Ruby would end up worried about thinking about Yang in a fight. As far as Ruby knew, Yang was still too likely to overreach and get almost murdered again. Yang still needed to prove that she was strong enough for her sister.

"Thank you." Four said. "Now, excuse me, I have a busy night ahead of me. Some interrogations to do. I'll be in touch to talk about borrowing Yang, okay?"

"Just look after her, okay?" Taiyang asked.

Insisting Four keep her safe. It's the normal father thing to, worry about their children. Yang knew that. He was just looking after her.

It still stung, that he thought it was necessary.

That he was protecting her, even if it was what any father would do, was another sign that people thought that Yang needed to be treated with kid gloves. That she can't be trusted to handle herself in a fight.

When was the last time she even won a fight, anyway?

Blake had taken her down. The Death Stalker had escaped alive. Dito had slaughtered her. She'd run from Coco and Velvet before the fight really ended. Her father needed to step in with backup to drive off Melanie.

In the fight club, she'd won a few fights. Fights that didn't matter. One's she could win, but in the end, she didn't even need to win those fights to get the information out of Junior.

Before that? She'd saved the girl and the Undine, but she'd nearly killed herself doing it, and in the aftermath was weak another that a small starving child had nearly killed her.

Failure, after failure, after failure.

People felt the need to look after Yang because she still hadn't proven she could look after herself.

Yang noticed Ruby staring at her, and tried to relax. No point worrying her any further. She needed to be better for Ruby, and if that meant looking better than she was, then, well, that's what it took.

"Let's head home, then." Yang said. Four gave a wave, then walked away.

"Yeah, home we go." Taiyang noted.

Yang stood, and the family group walked out the door. A few metres out of it, though, Taiyang started talking.

"I didn't get the full story." He began. " What exactly happened, Yang?"

"I went to get pizza." She explained. "Then there was a robbery across the road, and I stepped in."

"And then you chased after someone who ran?" He asked again.

"I didn't want the terrorists to win." Yang replied.

"You didn't have to give chase, though." Taiyang noted. "Nobody would blame you if you let him get away."

"I would've blamed me." Yang pointed out. "If I didn't go after her, I'd be sitting around wondering if I could have made a difference. Better to try and fail then never try, right?"

"I'm just glad you're fine." Ruby said. "The other guy must have been really strong if they were able get away from you."

Yang's eye twitched, as she looked away.

She was just trying to make Yang feel better. There was no way she could make that claim honestly.

"Yeah." Yang nodded. "Really annoying in a fight. I could barely hit her with all her dodging and leaving behind shadowy replicas. It's really a pain to hit people who dodge a lot."

"It's all about the surprise attacks and predictions." Taiyang advised. "Alternatively, ask them embarrassing questions. They'll be too busy dodging the questions to dodge your fists."

"I don't imagine this would work." Yang pointed out.

"Try it out. Maybe ask them when the last time they talked to their grandparents was."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. Hey Ruby, want to get some ice cream?"

"If you want some." Ruby replied. Which was...

Yang frowned. She'd usually be more enthusiastic about ice cream.

"Can I have some too?" Taiyang asked. "I mean, if you're paying, Yang."

"Depends on how much allowance my dad gives me. He's a real pain, always giving me too little."

"Maybe you should try being a more respectful daughter who does all the chores around the house so your dad can just watch tv all day?" Taiyang asked.

Yang considered it. "...Nah."

* * *

The scroll vibrated as Yang got ready to go to bed, and she tapped over to it. Four's face quickly opened up on it.

"Hey." Four waved. "Nice to see you."

"You too." Yang replied. "...Wait, no. You Four."

Four stared blankly at her.

"...Do I have to explain puns to you as well?"

Four sighed. "That's just... Let's move on."

"Spoilsport." Yang muttered.

"Anyway." Four cut in. "Just thought I'd let you know. Managed to get some more information out of my captive. On whats going on."

"Oh?" Yang asked.

"Not too much." She went on. "Apparently, there's three White Fang members, not including my little captive, meant to meet up there. The plan is for them to gather near the fight club, win a few rounds, and meet up with an illegal dealer. Each of them has shown interest in buying a type of Dust from him, and they're apparently going to try and manipulate the betting so that one of them, a lieutenant of some sort, will have enough money for the dealer to try and talk to him first. That way they get the most amount of Ice dust possible, and nobody can buy them out first."

"So, what's the plan?" Yang asked.

"We're going in." Four explained. "You and me. And my Disciple, but forget about him. We'll go in, win a bit, beat up the White Fang a bit. Hopefully disrupt their betting plan. Even if we don't, if we make sure they're hurt enough, then after the fact, we can ambush them and ensure they're at they're weakened in advance. We just need to make sure not to be hurt."

"Are you sure it'll work?" Yang asked. "I mean, you said that the Blake girl knows you. What are the odds she's warned them about what you look like?"

Four paused, in consideration.

"...Good point." Four mused. "I suppose it'll just be you and Decadus, then. I'll wait outside the building. If I have Decadus keep his scroll linked up to a tracking program, I can have him tag whoever you identify as likely White Fang members, and they'll turn up on my scroll to watch them."

"Decadus, huh?" Yang asked. "Anything I should know about him?"

"He's a bit..."

Four trailed off, and sighed.

"I'll tell him not to talk to you. Just ignore him, he'll communicate via text or something. It'll be easiest. Trust me, he won't mind."

Yang blinked. "O... Kay?"

"Please don't ask." Four sighed. "I just... It... Please."

"I guess." Yang replied. "So, uh, see you then? Anything else I should do?"

"...Two people is kind of pushing it." She mused. "It might be an idea to involve other people. I don't think I know anyone reliable enough for that, though. If you can think of anyone we can trust to bring into this, let me know. At worst, maybe I can hire some people to throw a few rounds against us, but if you have anyone in mind, that'll work to."

Four's face on the screen looked away, and she yawned. "...It's getting late. I'm going to go to sleep. Justice can't be done if the sword of Justice is too slow to act."

"Night." Yang said, and waved, as Four broke the connection. Then, she wandered off, going to get some sleep.

 **Four suggested the idea of bringing more people to the Fight Club thing. Does Yang have any ideas?**

 **[X] No. She has nobody she'd want to drag into this. Let her be the one getting in every fight scene.**  
 **[X] Some of her classmates might enjoy the experience. Blast will probably be there anyway, but maybe Piran and Peri as well...**  
 **[X] Yang did meet up with Junior that one time. Maybe she can slide by there again and see if he knows anyone willing to be hired for a job.**  
 **[X] Ren and Nora were doing things. Even if their last meeting ended with a bit of a headache, maybe they'd like the chance to test themselves.**


	66. Rumours

**[X] Yang did meet up with Junior that one time. Maybe she can slide by there again and see if he knows anyone willing to be hired for a job.**

The music in the nightclub was booming, as Yang walked in.

It was kinda late, and the sun was nearly down, but Yang's dad didn't expect her home for a bit after sunset anyway, so she had time.

People had started to gather, but not in numbers. It was probably mostly people who were going to leave before long, or had things to do in the morning. Not any people who'd party hard all night or anything.

Still, if it was open, then that meant Junior was here somewhere.

Probably.

Maybe not, but if he wasn't, Yang could just ask around for him.

There was music playing, as the DJ wearing a bear mascot mask sat behind his turntables lazily, kinda snoozing off a bit. Was he getting paid for that? That didn't seem like something he could get paid for. Unless he does really good work when he actually tries or something like that.

A bodyguard noted Yang's entrance, and approached her. "What are you doing here, Miss?"

Yang smiled. "I'm looking for Junior. Do you mind if you an direct me to where he is?"

"Why are you looking for him?" The bodyguard asked.

Yang flexed her fingers in frustration.

"I want to talk to him about something." Yang explained. "There's potentially some money in it for him."

The bodyguard considered it for a moment, then tapped on something inside his ear, holding his finger down for a moment.

"...Right this way." The man said, walking Yang over to the VIP section she'd gone into with her father after Melanie's whole thing was revealed. "Be aware, there are several armed guards positioned in there to act if you try anything."

"I'm not taking my gauntlets off." Yang said defensively.

"I won't ask you to, Miss." The bouncer assured her. "But keep in mind that if you start acting violently, you will be asked to leave."

"Don't worry." Yang replied. "I'm here on business, not... Well, you know."

The bodyguard nodded, then opened up the VIP door, gesturing Yang through. The girl walked through, heading up the stairs.

A moment later, she walked into the VIP room. Yang noted four bodyguards standing around the room, and Junior looking at something on a giant screen as he sat at a table.

"Yang Xiao Long." He noted. "It's been a while since you were last here."

"Junior." Yang nodded. "What're you watching?"

"Just checking my mail." The club owner replied. "You might be interested in knowing how Melanie's doing."

Yang stepped forward, moving to look over Junior's shoulder, and he shoved the screen up so it folded out of view.

"Stop that." He said. "It's private."

"Yeah, yeah." Yang rolled her eyes. "What'd it say, pal? Miltia still in Atlas?"

"Not for much longer." Junior explained. "There was some kind of disagreement, so Miltia's leaving Melanie in Atlas and coming back."

Yang winced, as she stepped around to the other side of the table. "Ah. Ouch. What about?"

"If Miltia wants you to know, she'll tell you." Junior replied. "Ask her when she gets back in a few days if you really want to know. You came here for a reason, didn't you?"

Well, so much for small talk.

"I'm working on something with someone." Yang explained. "You remember the Intoners, right? Two and Five? Because Four's in town, and trying to do something."

Junior stiffened. "...What does she want?"

"She'll tell you if she wants you to know." Yang replied, with a smile. "Point is, she's looking for some people who are trying not to be found."

"And you're trying to get information out of me?" Junior asked.

Yang shrugged. "If you know some stuff, I'll ask about it afterwards. Four's got a plan right now, though. The people she's looking for are going to be meeting up in the Fight Club thing. Trying to throw fights with each other to manipulate the bets. Four wanted some people on hand to figure out who they are, identify them, and sabotage their scheme."

Junior frowned. "I've seen what the Intoners are like. If this Four is going to be hunting people down using the Fight Club-"

"She doesn't intend to enter herself." Yang explained. "Just wait outside for them. And besides, even if the Fight Club management has rules regarding using the establishment to hunt people down, I suppose they won't like the idea of people going in with the intent of manipulating the fight for their own purposes?"

Junior considered it for a moment.

"...Point." He considered. "As long as you let the management know in advance, they should probably let you get away with it."

Yang nodded. "Good, good. Anyway, Four was thinking about hiring people. Do you have anyone in mind?"

"A few." Junior continued. "I've been looking for someone to fill in the gap, and there's some names that might help. I had to narrow it down to people I found trustworthy enough, so I do have a list of people who'll either honour their words or not break a contract."

"Such as?" Yang asked.

Junior pulled down the screen and pressed his fingertips against it a few times. As he swiped through something, he talked.

"If the next Fight Club meeting is when I think it is, then Miltia should be back by then." Junior noted. "She seemed to get along with you, so maybe ask her."

"Thanks for the heads up." Yang nodded. It'd be nice to see Miltia again. They hadn't talked in a while. Not since Yang had failed to ki- Successfully driven off the Death Stalker.

"Then there's a few people you might be able to rely on." Junior eventually stated, as he stopped swiping over the screen. "First up is someone I'm told you encountered last time you were at the fight club. Fuyu Chizakura. He had a sword that turned into flying drones?"

"I think I remember him." Yang mused. "Sounds familiar, at least. I think I beat him?"

"That's right." Junior nodded. "He's got a kind of honour code. If you hire him for a job, he'll carry it out. I'll pass his information on to you?"

"Sure." Yang shrugged. "I'll send them in to Four afterwards so she can pick who to hire. I'll pass her Miltia's contact information too, if you tell her in advance I might want to request her help."

Junior nodded, and then moved on to look through different people's information.

"Hm." He mused. "Not many other people here showing much interest. There's someone from Beacon on the list too. Fox Alistair? Apparently a regular at the Fight Club, and been doing a bunch of jobs around the city recently after something happened to his teammates."

"I think I remember him too." Yang noted. "Not sure what about him, though."

"Not sure if anyone else here is good for you, though." Junior admitted. "Everyone else here is too mercenary or unreliable. Or too inexperienced. Miltia, Fuyu, and Fox should be enough for you, right?"

"Three, plus me." And Decadus, Yang thought, but Four hadn't mentioned him and if someone spilled information then Yang didn't want to risk any of it being lost. "And I suppose I don't have to say anything about this all being private information?"

Junior snorted. "Your'e doing this with an Intoner. I heard what happened from Miltia. I'd be an idiot to try and make things harder then you."

"Good." Yang nodded. "Thanks, Junior. How much does this information cost me?"

Junior lowered a device from the ceiling, by the screen. "I'll just send you the bill with the information."

Yang nodded, and tapped it against the device. Her scroll beeped, and she looked through it briefly to observe the contact information and bill. Then, with another press of the button, the information was sent through to Four.

"Well, I'm done here." Yang nodded. "See you later, Junior."

Pocketing her scroll again, Yang walked back into the nightclub downstairs. It was a bit more packed now, but the DJ still wasn't doing any work.

There were people talking a bunch, and Yang paused by a few of the more curious conversations.

"Have you been keeping updated on the news in Atlas?" Somebody asked someone else. "You know, that expansionist movement?"

"Not really." The other person replied.

"They've been expanding recently. Started getting organised. Different important people and corporations and politicians are all signing on. They're calling it Zeigen Schicksal."

"Hey, didn't I hear that term in the news from Mistral?"

"Yeah, they're expanding. They're biggest in Atlas, but the group is starting to pick up some traction in other places. Everyone wants their Kingdoms to expand borders. Atlas is in the best position to do it, but the logic is that if everyone supports the movement now, Atlas will expand and then help out the other Kingdoms."

Yang walked on a bit away from that conversation, noting it for a moment. Wasn't that the movement Qrow said would fail unless it got support from the Schnee or the military? It was weird, hearing them continuing to expand. You'd think it'd have died down if it didn't have support from one at the start.

Maybe there was someone pulling the strings there?

Walking around a bit more, Yang heard a brief snippet of a conversation from elsewhere.

"Man, thing's are getting rough in Vacuo." A voice noted.

"What do you mean?" Another asked.

"Things are getting rougher, back there. Rumour has it, the headmaster of Shade Academy has started pushing for more control of the Kingdoms. Threatening cities that step out of line by leaving them to the Grimm and sending food and stuff elsewhere."

"Ouch. Can't imagine that went well."

"Yeah. People thought he was bluffing, then all the Hunters trained in Shade started pulling back and stopped hunting in certain areas."

That...

Was odd. Yang didn't know too much about Vacuo as a Kingdom, but from what she did know, it was the roughest of them. Vacuo was a place where conditions were harsh, so there were a lot of people in the Kingdom who only lived there because they had no choice. This did, more often then not, mean people with rather negative views on the more organised nature of the other Kingdoms.

Shade Academy was basically the government in Vacuo, so if the headmaster was taking charge of things, that could mean a lot of things. Not many of them good. It was a point debated in the other Kingdoms a bit, but it was generally accepted that Vacuo was an area that could use more law and order in places.

But outright abandoning areas that were troublesome? Letting the Grimm take care of things? Just leaving the people there? That wasn't going to end well. People who weren't going to bow to authority won't appreciate it when they have their food supply crippled and be forced to have to deal with Grimm more.

Well, hopefully things worked out there. It'd suck if things started happening there. If things did go wrong, Vale would probably step in and try to help resolve things. Which...

Well, Yang didn't know enough about the politics of the situation, but that could either be really good or really bad. It depends on some factors that Yang didn't fully understand. Politics was hard.

As she approached the exit, she overheard a bit more about conversation. Someone was talking about their wallet disappearing while in a fashion clothes store or something. And then there was someone else talking about the White Fang.

"Did you hear about the latest attack?"

"The robbery near the pizza place?"

"No, the other one. A bunch of White Fang members attacked a police station to try and find someone. Didn't get who they were looking for, ended up running, but the police community is up in arms."

Yang mused for a moment, if Four had heard that one.

Well, of course she must of, she followed a lot regarding the White Fang. Probably got in contact to get information from them at some point.

As she stepped outside, she pulled out her scroll and started dialling Four.

It **won't be long now, before Yang returns to the Fight Club. She, and a few others, would end up fighting in a few matches. Yang doesn't intend to start fighting right away and tire herself out against weaker opponents for no reason, and until then, she'll end up talking to someone while watching a match. Who?**

 **[X] Miltia. They haven't talked for a while, and since she's coming back anyway, Yang better see what that's about.**  
 **[X] Fuyu. Why not. Yang barely knew him, and so might be able to learn the most by talking to him.**  
 **[X] Fox. He was a Beacon student, she might be able to get some good training tips out of him.**  
 **[X] ...Four had said not to, but she didn't seem to understand teenagers, because now Yang was wondering what it would be like to talk to Decadus.**


	67. Best Laid Plans

**[X] Miltia. They haven't talked for a while, and since she's coming back anyway, Yang better see what that's about.**

Stepping into the building Four had designated, Yang pulled a jacket around her, flaring her Aura slightly, just a little, to keep herself warm.

Why did it have to be so cold?

Trying to ignore it, Yang walked up some stairs, and pushed herself into a room.

...Huh. She was the last person here.

"Hey, everyone." Yang waved. "Sorry I took so long."

Everyone looked over at Yang, and she took a moment to look over them.

"You must be Yang." Said a tall hulk of a man, at least a head taller than Four with an impressively large torso. He wore a pair of glasses on the end of the nose, and seemed to have a weapon similar to Four's. He looked down at her for a moment, and opened his mouth to say something more.

"Don't bother her." Four ordered, as she flexed her claws in anticipation. "Sorry, Yang. I _told_ him to stay to himself..."

"He didn't really say anything bad, though?" Yang asked, kinda confused. "If anything-"

Four shook her head. "Trust me, Yang. He acts all professional and mature and kind, but my Disciple is not the kind of person you want to be interacting with."

"...Okay." Yang said, rather confused.

"Yang Xiao Long." Said another voice, and the girl with yellow hair turned to look at who must have been Fuyu Chizakura. "It's been a while since we met."

"Hi to you too." Yang noted, looking over the man. He was sitting in the window, looking out to the night with his black hair hanging down his back. He looks over at Yang, and she notices he seems to have replaced his visor with a shorter, slightly larger one that seemed to be clinging closer to his face than before. "So Four ended up hiring you?"

"The contract was enough to tempt me, I confess." Fuyu admitted. "I still haven't forgotten our last fight, Xiao Long. Rest assured, I have striven to cover the weaknesses that you were able to take advantage of last time."

"You brought along more than one weapon?" Yang asked.

"Significantly more."

Yang blinked, then smiled. Heh. He was amusing.

Nodding at the man as he cleaned the edge of his blade while staring out into the night, Yang looked towards Miltia.

"How are you doing?" She asked.

Miltia looked over at her. "Me? I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Yang asked. "I heard you and your sister-"

"It's nothing." Miltia insisted. "Come on, don't we have a fight to get on with?"

"Not for a bit longer." Four replied, scrolling through her scroll (heh) as she did so. "I'm just confirming some information about the plan first."

Miltia looked over at Four, then back at Yang.

"It's really nothing." Miltia insisted. "It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

Yang frowned, but didn't push the topic. Miltia's words were somewhat unconvincing, but Yang didn't want to push the issue just yet. It wouldn't do to antagonise someone before Four's plan started properly.

Turning to the last person in the room, Yang looked over towards the last member of the group. Fox Alistair, the Beacon student, who was looking towards the nearby wall. Or, well, not really looking. His gaze wasn't focused. He was just kinda facing it.

"Fox?" Yang asked. "I don't think we've talked before. Good to meet you."

Fox nodded in her direction, and Yang took a moment to note that, somehow, Fox was wearing a singlet that showed off his arms without being visibly bothered by the cold.

Well, he was a Beacon student. Maybe he just picked up a trick to help him ignore the cold better. That was probably an Aura manipulation exercise. Or maybe he also had a fire aligned Semblance like Yang did.

Or maybe he was just ignoring it so he could show off all the scars on his arm.

...Oddly enough, a lot of the scars were positioned up his arm enough that they were in line with the backwards-facing blades attached to his fists. Maybe he had some trouble figuring out his weapon at first?

"...So, Four hired you as well?" Yang asked. "I saw you fight last time you were here. You did alright. Beat up Blast at a time where I couldn't get around his Semblance, and did well against that Marcus guy."

Fox looked at Yang and grinned, a scar visible over his lips and strained as he did so.

"...You don't talk much, do you?" Yang asked.

Fox shrugged.

"Alright then." Yang shrugged. "I'd try to push the point, but I can see that trying to get you to talk is a Mute point."

Fox snorted, and Yang could hear him chuckle faintly.

She... Didn't know if mute people could audibly laugh, so she was fairly sure Fox was just playing with her. Or just preferred not to talk much. Either or.

"Alright." Four declared, putting her scroll down from her face. "I've got the plan down. Here's what we're going to do."

Everyone stepped around, forming a semicircle in front of Four, who cleared her throat and got ready to five a speech.

"Alright people." She explained. "I've asked a few captives, and we're going to go over what we know one more time."

Everyone nodded, and Four started pacing.

"The White Fang are going through with their plan here. There's going to be three of them here. Two underlings, and a lieutenant. The last one is the important one here, but I don't want any of them getting away."

She pressed a button on her scroll, and a hologram opened up. A graph appeared, with several lines pointing towards several people.

"We all know that the White Fang has been striking at Dust stores to buy certain kinds of Dust, and I want to know _why_. That's not overly important right now, but all you need to know is about the lieutenant."

Four tapped the hologram, and it expanded on a picture of a woman in a trench coat of some kind, and a red cap. Her long hair blocked out most of her face, but what was visible looked annoyed.

"This is Otoko." Four explained. "She's a Dust dealer of... Well, that's not relevant right now. What is relevant is that she's going to be in the Fight Club right now, making bets. And she'll also be keeping track of who bets on what, so she can sell to whoever has the most money. I've put in a request to see her after the show, and I've given her Decadus' name."

Decadus nodded, and said nothing.

"The rest of you can contact her if you want." Four continued. "But for now, I merely want to explain the plan. I want either Decadus or one of you to take the best possible winnings, but if that fails, at the very least I want you denying as many winnings to the White Fang as possible."

Yang nodded. "Beat up just enough people to mess up whatever betting scheme they have?"

"Too much won't be needed." Four waved. "You'll only need to do one fight each. In that time, I want you to try and identify who the White Fang members are, or at least the lieutenant."

"I assume you'll be having us follow anyone who we suspect of being part of the White Fang?" Fuyu asked.

Four nodded. "Exactly. Decadus will return here after the fight to lure Otoko here after the fighting. If everything works out as best it can, then Otoko will be coming here first, and I half expect the White Fang will be trying to intercept."

Fox made a humming sound, in consideration.

"Following that, everyone should identify at least White Fang member." She continued. "We have one extra person here, so we can be wrong once."

"Anything we should keep an eye out for?" Miltia asked.

Four cleared her throat again, tapping the hologram again to bring up a still picture of a person lying on a bed.

"This is a White Fang member." Four explained. "A fourth member who was supposed to be here today. He's not going to be. So for one thing, the White Fang members are likely to be looking for someone, as well as possibly on edge if they fear he's been captured or that he's sold them out."

She paused for a moment.

"Well, and there's the obvious." Four continued. "The White Fang are a Faunus Hate Group. If someone's walking around with bunny ears, they're more likely to be the person you're looking for then a person without."

Yang frowned, and looked at Four, who shifted.

"...That came out rather racist, didn't it? Sorry. Didn't mean to make anyone uncomfortable. Point stands, though."

"...Fair enough." Miltia decided.

Stretching her arm a bit, Four looked over everyone again.

"I don't think I need to talk about much more." She decided. "The people running the fight club tells me this'll be a collection of one on one fights, so go in there, try to identify a target, fight them, beat them. If people start looking like they're throwing a fight to someone else, consider it for a moment, those two might be the White Fang. Everyone understand that?"

There was a collection of nods.

"Good." Four decided. "Let's go then."

Yang looked over in time to see Fuyu walking towards and then out of a window, while Fox left the room immediately. Decadus took a moment to tweak his weapons for a moment, before going to stand behind Four, and when Yang looked over to see Miltia walking out, and ran up to catch up to her.

"Hey." Yang said, as she matched Miltia's pace. "Mind if we talk while we walk?"

"If you feel like it." Miltia replied, before slowing down a moment. "...You're going to ask about Melanie, aren't you?"

"Sorry." Yang winced. "I get the idea that it's a rough patch, but-"

"It's fine." Miltia insisted. "Why would there be a problem?"

Yang looked at her. "Last time we met, you said that you were feeling terrible because Melanie was looking so pathetic. Now I hear you had a disagreement with her, and you're expecting me to say you're fine?"

"I'm fine." Miltia insisted. "It's not a big deal, really."

"How?" Yang asked, as the two of them left the building. "I mean, you don't just change like that so quickly-"

"I know you're worried, Yang." Miltia shrugged her off. "But really. It's okay. It doesn't matter. Nothing mattered. It didn't..."

She paused, and leaned against the wall of the building next to her, taking a deep breath.

"...It's not like I care." She insisted.

Yang stopped to look at the girl in the red dress. "...You don't look fine, Miltia."

"And _you_ look so much better." Miltia bit back. "You run off into a forest full of Grimm and keep throwing yourself into a nigh-impossible fight just because _you're_ feeling bad, but I stumble a bit and you need to take me aside to see what's wrong?"

Yang froze, as the words hit her.

What the hell was Miltia trying to imply here? Yang already knew that she was weak as she was, and she needed to be stronger. Was there supposed to be something _wrong_ with that?

"Just talk to me, Miltia." Yang asked, her voice starting to get icy. Damn it, she wasn't hiding that enough.

"...You want to know what happened?" Miltia asked. "Fine. It's not like it matters. I tried to talk to Melanie."

"And?" Yang asked.

"...Fifth time in a month." Mitlia said. "Fifth time I tried to talk to her, and the instant she sees me, she asks where Five is. I ask her how she is, and her answer depends on the last time she saw Five. _Everything_ is about Five."

Paling slightly, the Huntress in training grabbed Miltia's hand. "...That must've sucked."

"Why would it?" Miltia asked. "Yeah, sure, I thought I was doing something wrong at first. But I took your advice there, Yang. I went out and got in a bunch of fights. Won a bunch of fights. And you know what? I get it. I'm not the terrible sister. I'm not the sister that never even bothered asking how the other was coping."

...Oh no.

"Was that what it was about?" Yang asked. "You didn't think Melanie cared?"

"Naturally." Miltia said frostily. "I tried to talk to her, and she just shrugs me off? I made the effort. I'm not in the wrong. I'm... I'm not..."

Her breathing hitches, and she wipes something from her eye from a moment, pulling free from Yang's hand in the process.

"...Come on." Miltia muttered softly. "We're gonna be late."

Yang nodded silently, and set off after Miltia as she started walking away.

...Damn it. She didn't know what to say here, to make Miltia feel better. That situation of hers sounded terrible. Yang knew that Melanie had been messed up by Five's song, and that Miltia wasn't taking it well, but this?

Had it really gotten bad enough that Miltia had to justify things to herself like this? Try to convince herself that her sister didn't matter to her just so she stopped feeling bad about watching how bad off her sister was, when she couldn't help?

She must feel terrible-

 _"Are you alright, Yang?"_

The girl with yellow hair stopped again, as the memory came to her.

...No, she was just being paranoid. Ruby knew she cared. Ruby worried, but she wasn't as bad off as Melanie was, and Ruby never pushed the issue. She knew that Yang was fine. And Ruby, she must've been feeling bad after watching people get hurt, but that was why Yang needed to get stronger to keep her safe. Ruby was fine, and she knew Yang was fine.

Didn't she?

With an uncomfortable feeling in her stomach, Yang wandered on to the Fight Club building.

...She'd need to have a talk with Ruby later. Just to... Just to assure herself.

 **With the Fight Club Fighting starting soon, there are a few relevant fights going down. For now, though, who will fight first?**

 **[X] Decadus**  
 **[X] Fox Alistair**  
 **[X] Fuyu Chizakura**  
 **[X] Miltia Malachite**  
 **[X] Yang Xiao Long**


	68. One on One

**[X] Decadus**

"Make sure we stay apart." Miltia said, as she and Yang approached the secret door to the Fight Club. "We'll be able to keep an eye over more people if we split up a bit."

Yang nodded. "Sure, sure. Send me a message if you identify someone. Four set up a group chat, didn't she?"

"I think so." Miltia mused. "Not entirely sure."

She stepped into the elevator that had the secret compartment, and Yang tried to focus. She could think about talking to Ruby later. For now, she was in the middle of something, and she was already enough of a failure to risk getting distracted and not being able to give it her all.

It was a good thing that the Fight Club had rules about leaving people with Aura, she didn't need to worry as much about being brought too low here at least. As long as she finished the night with her Aura intact enough that nobody noticed a problem, she wouldn't worry anyone.

So she didn't need to think about that, for now. Right now there was only her, and the crowd.

The door opened, and Yang stepped in. Miltia went to the left, so Yang went right. The room was a bit crowded, as people started moving towards the pit in the middle.

There was a lot of people, and not many that Yang recognised. She vaguely remembered a few of them from the last time she was in the Fight Club, but nobody by name.

Well, whoever the White Fang members were, they were likely gathering around the fighting pit so they could be ready to put their plan into action. So she'd probably be able to see people best if she got near it herself.

Squeezing between a few people as she stepped forward, Yang looked down to see the first fight.

As she stepped into view, Yang saw a fight already in process, between Decadus and a woman she didn't recognise. Decadus stepped forward and moved to punch her. The woman stood still as a shadowy limb emerged from her back, blocking Decadus' blow. A second limb emerged next to it and stretched out to touch the nearby wall as she did so, and in that second where both Decadus and the wall were touched, an ethereal shadow connected between the two. Then the arms shrank, and the shadow connecting Decadus to the wall shrank, slamming Decadus into the wall.

Decadus let out a moan, as the shadow faded away, and he turned back to the woman as she turned towards him and jabbed with the long, thin, spider-like limb. Decadus ripped his arm from the wall, and caught the limb, before pulling it towards him. The spider leg grew longer as he pulled on it, before the woman's face displayed her annoyance and she dispelled the limb.

It reformed a moment later, and another two spider legs emerged beneath the first two, before all the spider legs started dancing around the pit, touching the walls and floor in several places. They sped up as they grew more ethereal, less visible, and as Decadus charged forward into punching range, all the connections grew solid at once, arranging into a spider web that held him in place.

Decadus groaned, as the web formed around him and restrained him, and the woman smiled, as she stepped forward.

"How easy." She chuckled. "Now, let's get to the fun part."

She opened her mouth, displaying a pair of rather terrifying fangs, before biting into Decadus' neck. His Aura strained for a moment, before the woman pulled back.

"Ah..." Decadus moaned, and the woman frowned.

"Are you..." She mused, before suddenly stepping back, spiting in the process. "Oh, _ew!_ Really? Are you _serious?_ "

Yang got the idea she didn't want to know what the spider lady was thinking, so she didn't think about it.

"Ah, such a reaction..." Decadus mused. "I truly disgust you, don't I? I'm... Ah, detestable."

"Can I fight someone else?" The woman asked, as she turned away from Decadus. "Please? I really want to fight someone el-"

Decadus suddenly ripped out of the shadowy webbing, ripping forward to catch the woman's head in his hand, before slamming her down into the ground.

His other hand reached into a belt, before pulling out some sort of chain. He threw it over the woman, and it glowed purple as he let it go. The chain suddenly slammed downwards, as the gravity intensified, restraining around her and forcing her further down while digging into her body, her Aura visibly straining in the process.

Another shadow limb emerged from her back, and pulled at her own belt, before throwing a lightning crystal into the air. The four limbs emerged again and thrashed around, before connecting Decadus to the crystal and a dozen different points around the pit. Electricity started flowing through the shadows, zapping into Decadus, who let out a groan of... Well, _hopefully_ pain, before he stepped forward and touched his boot against the chain around the spider woman.

She cried out as well as electricity flowed through the chain and into her as well, before she gritted her teeth and tried to through the chain off around her. The chain strained as four different shadow limbs pulled at it, but the alarm suddenly blared before anything could happen.

"Match over!" Announced a voice. "Decadus is victorious!"

He stepped away from the spider woman, who's shadow web vanished a moment later, and the two of them just waited for a moment as they tried to concentrate through the pain. Decadus picked up his chain, putting it around his belt again, and jumped out of the ring while the spider girl boosted herself out again with her shadowy spider legs.

Yang's scroll suddenly shook, as messages started being sent, and she quickly joined the chatroom to see who was talking.

Fuyu had reported the end of the first match, between Decadus and the spider lady- Who's name was apparently Haseltii- And suspecting the latter of being a Faunus because of the fangs.

Four responded with a message of her own. _Likely to be a WF member?_

Yang quickly joined in to continue. _Maybe. Any more evidence?_

 _We should keep her in mind at least._ Miltia mused. _Just in case. Anything of note, Decadus?_

Decadus replied immediately. _Her fangs contain a form of poison. It's incredibly painful._

Four responded by doing something to ban Decadus from talking for five minutes, and Yang took a moment to look over at Haseltii.

As she jumped up to outside the pit, a girl with green hair jumped down, and pulled out two guns. Fuyu stepped down a moment later, and Yang looked around after Haseltii as the announcer began announcing the next round.

She noticed the spider woman looking across the arena, to Yang's left, and she quickly observed the people around there to see who it could be. Three people were immediately obvious, including at least one woman with multiple fox tails, a woman wearing a blindfold, and a rather bland looking boy about Yang's age.

None of them reacted to Haseltii's gaze, but it was curious, so Yang quickly jolted down a message about it on her scroll. Four responded with an order for someone to fight the woman with the obvious Faunus traits, and Fox immediately called dibs.

Yang payed attention to the fight again, and noted that Fuyu's upgrades seemed to include using a lot more drones than before. The girl with green hair tried to shoot at Fuyu for a bit, only for all her bullet to be intercepted by drones. Yang noticed a few drones circling around her, and the girl spun around to kick one of them.

She seemed inexperienced, Yang noticed. Or was possibly throwing the fight. She wasn't shooting as she ran, she was standing still too much, she seemed observant but wasn't using a Semblance or trying to get close to someone who was stationary.

Fuyu observed her for a moment, using the drones to make the green haired girl dodge away, creating more distance between them. Then, several of the drones formed together, folding together into a blade, before shooting forward and hitting the girl's side. She cried out, before taking a moment to focus on Fuyu. With a start, she started sprinting at him.

The drones slammed into her as she ran, knocking her off balance repeatedly, but she continued her forward momentum long enough to get within range of Fuyu.

The elegant man reached into his robe and pulled out a smaller sword, more of a dagger actually, and stabbed forward with it. The stab just merely missed the girl with green hair, who slammed her weapons into his head. He stumbled, as she opened fire, shooting him in the head repeatedly, before he brought his arm around and sliced her arm. The alarm blared and the round ended.

Yang couldn't hear anything, but could see Fuyu saying something, as the green haired girl looked frustrated, before leaping out of the pit and walking away from the crowd.

Fuyu exited a moment later, and quickly pulled out his scroll to note that his opponent seemed like she was afraid to lose, but didn't feel like a White Fang member. Didn't seem the type to be part of a big mission if she was fighting like that.

It was possible she was holding back, but to the degree of taking that much Aura damage? Not likely.

Yang nodded in agreement, then looked up again to see the next fight.

Two people she didn't recognise stepped into the ring, and Yang took a moment to look around again, see if she could spot anyone else. Over on the other side of the ring, Haseltii was talking to a young girl, about Yang's age, with a freckled face.

Another potential suspect?

Well, that assumes that Haseltii was a White Fang member, which hadn't been confirmed yet. But the way that the two of them whispered and looked around, with the younger girl looking somewhat concerned. Four _did_ mention that people would be looking for that one missing White Fang member, so it was possible that they were the target.

Which then raised the question, who was the third? Yang looked over to the side again, but couldn't get a look of their facial expression to read them and see what they were thinking.

The younger girl did seem ready to jump into the ring after the current fight, as one of the people in the ring started bouncing from wall to wall while the ground beneath the other started glowing and sizzling.

Yang reported her observation on her scroll, and Four responded immediately.

 _Someone drop in to fight her, or distract her and have someone else try._

 _Got it._ Yang responded. Briefly, she noticed Decadus' ban expire, and Four immediately reapplied it, stopping him from talking for another ten minutes. In the distance, Yang could have sworn she heard a muffled groan.

 _Who wants to hop in next?_ Miltia asked. _I can see the girl Yang mentioned, if nobody wants to fight her yet I can bump into her or spill a drink or something._

 _I don't mind fighting._ Fox texted back. _Anyone notice someone else it could be, though?_

Yang looked around a bit, trying to keep an eye on something.

 _...Actually, can't we check the current bets somehow?_ Fuyu texted through.

Four responded first. _I've got it open on a screen here. No pictures, though. The biggest two bets here are from people named Violet, Aqua, Ilia, Lavender and Red. I'm seeing a lot of creativity in these names._

 _So keep an eye out for matches between two people with those names?_ Asked Miltia.

 _Yeah. If any Faunus turn up or if one throws a match to the other, keep track of them, okay?_

 _k._ Yang responded, as she looked around.

Over by the side, Yang spotted someone else familiar. Otoko. The Dust dealer that Four had mentioned was looking around the ring, back and forth from people to a scroll she was holding. Her haze looked straight across for a moment, and Yang followed her gaze to Decadus. As Yang looked back, she noticed Otoko looking in the general direction of the people Yang had been suspicious of earlier, the woman with fox tails, the blindfolded lady, and the other guy.

Looking at people who showed interest in buying?

Yang mused for a moment, as the two fightings in the ring kept shooting at each other. The current fight would be other before long, so if Yang wanted to do something, now would be a good time.

Opening up her scroll to communicate what she was thinking, Yang quickly came up with a plan.

 **[X] Miltia bumps into Freckles just before she jumps into the pit, and Yang keeps an eye on who jumps in at around the same time.**  
 **[X] Yang jumps in before anyone else can, maybe shoving the people next to her to make sure she gets to fight Freckles.**  
 **[X] Actually, Otoko was over there, Yang might be able to try going to talk to her to ask if sh was really okay with selling to the White Fang.**


	69. Cloak & Dagger

**[X] Miltia bumps into Freckles just before she jumps into the pit, and Yang keeps an eye on who jumps in at around the same time.**

 _Miltia, bump into whatsherface._ Yang advised. _If she's one of the White Fang, then we might be able to figure out who's scheming with her._

 _On it._ Miltia replied, and Yang looked back down into the fight as the two combatants reached a conclusion. The combatant jumping around the walls pulled a pole out of his sleeve, one that didn't really look like it would fit. The pole rocketed out into the man on the ground, who was knocked off balance, before the pole started melting from the heat he was giving off.

 _Make sure you're ready to go._ Decadus advised. _Guns loaded? Aura concentrated? Muscles stretched?_

Four immediately deleted Decadus' comment. _I thought I banned you how are you still talking._

Yang rolled her eyes, but after a moment of thought, decided Decadus had a few good points. She took a moment to stretch her arm a bit, and took off her jacket to make sure she'd have unrestricted movement in the fight.

Inside the ring, one of the combatants ended up with molten steel covering them, which quickly burnt through their remaining Aura. The alarm blared a moment later, and both fighters left the ring.

Go time.

Yang looked across the pit, and saw the freckled girl moving to step in, before Miltia walked into her side and knocked her off balance. Freckles nearly fell, until Miltia caught her wrist and started apologising.

By the time she saw this, Yang had already taken a step forward, and started falling into the pit. She hit the rapidly cooling floor a moment later, and looked around for her opponent as she hit the ground.

Standing to her left, looking at Yang with a surprised expression, was the bland boy who couldn't be any older than Yang.

...Well, that was a surprise. He wasn't the one Yang would have expected to fall down.

Not because he was bland. It was alright to be bland. Boring, yes, but whatever. The main point of surprise is that his clothing didn't really conceal much, but despite that, he looked, well, human.

His red was cut short enough to not hide anything, his arms were exposed and even as he pulled his weapon out of his belt, Yang could see a lack of visible claws. His clothes were too form fitting to easily hide a tail or anything, so if he was was a Faunus, he was hiding his trait really well.

...But then, nobody ever said the White Fang didn't have human sympathisers, did they? It was entirely possible that this kid ended up joining if they had friends who joined, or even if they just happened to get caught up in the rhetoric.

Still not what Yang was expecting. Or anyone, really. The idea that one of the people Four could be looking for might be a human hadn't even come up in the discussion of the plan.

...Assuming this kid really was a White Fang member, and this wasn't just all everyone getting everything wrong.

"Next round!" The announcer declared. "Yang Xiao Long! Red Venetia! Fight!"

"Well, this is a bit of a disappointment." Red sighed, as his weapon expanded into a large greatshield. "I was hoping to get a fight with an old friend, you know. Show her how much I've improved."

His words seemed hesitant, somehow, as if he wasn't entirely sure in them. Which did reinforce the idea that he was a White Fang member and was lying to cover up his original plan and disappointment, but then, it was possible he was just really nervous and his hesitation was because he was bracing from an attack.

"Well then." Yang said, cocking Ember Celia. "No offence, but I'm afraid you're not gonna get another shot at that."

Red sighed softly, as he raised his shield in front of him. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to make the first move?"

Yang ran at him.

It was obvious he was baiting her. Maybe the shield had some sort of reflection ability, or absorption and release ability. Or maybe it was the boy's Semblance. Didn't matter. She had _plans_.

She struck the shield, firing Ember Celica. The boy took a step back, as Yang pushed on, punching and firing and punching as she fired, forcing the boy back more and more. Before long, as she started pushing Red into the wall, Yang fell back a bit, faking a moment of exhaustion.

Red didn't take her bait, and after a moment, Yang was back on the offensive. She struck again, forcing him back, but then circled a bit. A sweeping kick hit Red in the back, and he stumbled forward before he redirected the shield towards Yang and it was business as usual. It did mean that he had to back up further to get to a wall, though.

Before long, Yang tried to circular kick motion again, only for the move to be predicted and blocked. She continued spinning and punched the shield once more, firing another shot of Ember Celica to force Red to stumble backwards. Then, she pulled away for a moment, and panted in exhaustion.

She heard a click as Red pressed a button on his shield, and Yang dashed. She fired Ember Celica backwards and downwards, throwing herself over his shoulder, then fired it again to force herself back down towards him. With that done, she grabbed his wrist, and pulled away at it by kicking Red away.

He doubled over in pain as Yang pulled at the strap at his wrist, moving to pull it and the shield attached off of him. Red rapped his knuckle against the shield, and the edge of the huge hunk of steel grew sharper, more jagged, and then started revolving round the edge.

Huh. A chainsaw shield.

Yang ducked out of the way, firing at Red again to knock him off balance again, then jumped at him again. Getting behind Red before he could get balanced, Yang wrapped one arm around him to hold him in place, and used the other to grab his hand and pull the chainsaw shield closer to him.

As the edge of the shield started revving and nearly cutting at him, the boy tapped the shield again and stopped the rotation.

With that done, Yang pried at the strap connecting the shield to Red's wrist, and pulled it over his hand. Then, Yang threw the shield into the distance, and started punching into the boy's stomach.

Punch, fire. Punch, fire. Punch, and then mix things up a bit so he can't adapt. Throw Red at the wall, and fire Ember Celica at him again.

An alarm blared, and Yang stopped herself before she fired again.

...Ha. She won.

Too easy.

Turning away from Red, Yang jumped out of the pit, back where she came from, and pulled her scroll out again, to check over what had been discussed in her distraction.

...Not much. Discussion regarding who was suspicious and why. Miltia noted partway through the message chain that somebody wanted to take her aside to talk with her, and she was going with it just in case she could find some information.

Fox hadn't really said much, but had noted he was prepared to go in to fight if someone else looked suspicious.

A more recent message popped up, noting that Otoko had left the building after Yang's victory looked assured, and as she looked up, Yang noticed a bunch of other people in the crowd flaking away from the pit at that moment. A few people even turned to leave, while the others started wandering in the general direction of the exit.

A lot of people interested in Otoko's dust, apparently.

Yang looked over to see Red on the other side of the battle pit, as he looked at his scroll and then immediately looked down with an extremely frustrated expression, before marching towards the exit.

Rolling her shoulders, Yang took a moment to just enjoy her victory.

She'd won. Not only that, she did it _casually_. No fire, no Semblance boosted strength, no Aura damage. Not really much of a challenge, but _damn_ if it didn't feel good to be on the winning side for once.

Cracking her knuckles, Yang made her own way towards the exit of the fight club. She didn't see Haseltii or Freckles, so she needed to go out and find one of them again. Or at least find a point where she could track down people.

Which one, she wasn't sure. None of her suspects had ended up winning a fight, but Freckles hadn't lost a fight, so she seemed like the one most likely to have any money. Plus, she was going into the fight with the boy, so she was likely to be the one originally planned to do the deal, if she was bad.

...Which was weird, because Four had said a lieutenant would be doing the deal, and even if the boy looked younger and less White Fang-y, Freckles wasn't exactly the image of an old experienced terrorist herself.

It was weird. Though it's possible this was nepotism at work, if Freckles turned out to be a relative or friend of someone important. Still, it'd be weird if the person in charge of the operation was a young girl, considering the much older Haseltii was right there.

On the other hand, Yang also knew nothing about Freckles, while she did know a bit about the other two, who were low on Aura and had known qualities about their fighting style. Though that seemed to just be 'Lose' in Red's case, but she knew about his weapon, and knew about Haseltii's Semblance.

Plus Hasetii was the oldest, and most likely to actually be in charge of an operation like that...

...But that didn't mean she was going to end up going for the trade. After all, who's to say she wouldn't just oversee things while an underling did the trade?

Ugh, she wasn't sure what to do...

Four gave a text a moment later.

 _Just got a message from our dear Dust dealer! She's been informed that Fuyu, Decadus and Yang all work for me, and is currently entertaining the idea of coming for me first. So things are going rather well!_

 _Nice._ Fox mused. _I suppose it's time to start looking for people, then._

 _I'll return to Lady Four's side at once._ Decadus noted.

Four's own message somehow came within a fraction of a second later. _No, no, Decadus, it's fine, just hang around and follow people okay? Okay. Okay? Not near me okay?_

...Yang got the feeling there was something going on between Four and Decadus, but she also knew that the last time she had a feeling about something regarding Decadus she decided not to think about it, so she decided not to ponder that train of thought any further. Maybe she'd ask Four about it later.

 _We should ensure everyone's ready to move._ Fuyu noted. _I exited immediately and took the elevator to the ground floor. I'm ready to go. Everyone else?_

Decadus was the first to comment. _Still in the Fight Club._

 _Me too._ Fox chimed in.

 _Just at the exit._ Yang noted, as she walked down the stairs. _I'll be down in a moment._

 _Still waiting for Otok_ o. Four noted. _If anyone sees her, tell me if she's being followed._

There was a pause, for a long moment.

 _Miltia?_ Yang asked, when the girl in the red dress didn't comment. Still, there was no reply.

 _When was the last time someone saw Miltia?_ Yang asked the rest of the group, starting to get worried.

 _I saw her walking out the Fight Club room with someone._ Decadus noted. _Anyone know where she went?_

 _I didn't see her leave_. Fuyu noted. _So either she left before I got down here, or she's still in the building._

There was something off about the situation here. Yang paused for a moment, trying to keep track of everything relevant to the current situation.

 _...Where are our three important people?_ Yang asked. _Haseltii, my opponent, Freckles?_

 _I see Red._ Fuyu noted. _And I deployed a drone with a camera but its video feed isn't showing me where the rest are._

 _I just saw that Freckles girl Yang mentioned leave the room._ Decadus noted.

Yang paused, looking back towards the stairs.

 _Fuyu, where's the elevator?_

 _The display next to the entrance marks it as doing some travel around the middle floors currently._ Fuyu replied.

So there was only one way down, Yang mused. Meaning that if she just slowed down and waited by the bottom of the stairs, she could wait for Freckles and follow her from there.

Or go and find Miltia, or Haseltii. Or just go to Four's side and make sure nobody interrupted that deal.

As she approached the next floor down of the stairs, Yang rested against the wall, and took a moment, just a moment, to decide.

 **[X] Freckles was the most important target. Yang needed to wait a moment so she could tail her.**  
 **[X] Four's deal with Otoko would sabotage the White Fang more than anything. Making sure it went through would be the most important thing here.**  
 **[X] Miltia had fallen out of contact after going off to talk to someone. Yang should make sure to find her.**  
 **-[X] She's probably in the building. Since someone wanted to talk, Yang should think of where someone might have taken her for a private conversation.**  
 **-[X] She might be out of the building by now. If that was the case, then all the back alleys was probably the best bet.**


	70. Spiderwebs

**[X] Miltia had fallen out of contact after going off to talk to someone. Yang should make sure to find her.**  
 **-[X] She's probably in the building. Since someone wanted to talk, Yang should think of where someone might have taken her for a private conversation.**

She had to find Miltia.

The mission was going to succeed. Otoko was heading for Four, if the information was right, which means that they'd be able to stop the Dust dealer from selling to the White Fang. Which was...

A minor possibility, true. But Four was smart enough to throw together a plan to make captures as well, after meeting with Otoko. She'd be able to capture a White Fang member easily enough, get to the lieutenant and work on figuring out why the White Fang wanted the Dust so much.

In the meantime, Miltia had dropped out of contact. After she'd bumped into who was the prime suspect of being a White Fang member, who was about to go into a fight with someone who was on the list for people with the biggest bets on them.

Was it possible that one of the White Fang members had taken Miltia aside and was doing something to her, right now?

Yang couldn't risk it. She refused to risk it. She'd gotten Miltia involved in this by going to Junior for help, she couldn't just let something bad happen to Miltia because of it.

Miltia was a friend, and Yang has done letting people close to her be hurt. Not just Ruby, she can't let _anyone_ she cared about get hurt, if she could do anything abou-

No.

She _could_ do something about it, no matter what _it_ was. She was going to protect people, and not let anything stop her.

So she had to find Miltia. The question there was, where would she end up being?

...Well, for starters, there wasn't much time between Miltia leaving and now, so she had to be nearby. And the building did have some security to it, some cameras here and there, so if the person in question was trying something, then it'd be somewhere not being watched.

The building in question was a gambling centre. So, where would Yang be able to find an area that wasn't being monitored nearby? What wouldn't the gambling centre have put security cameras in?

...Bathrooms, Yang mused. There was too many privacy reasons behind putting security cameras in a bathroom, and there'd have to be one every few floors, so if there was one around here...

Yang wandered away from the stairs, momentarily looking back to confirm that nobody was going down it, and looked around a bit. If there was a bathroom on this floor, there'd be a sign somewhere pointing it out. Yang wandered around a corner, looking around in the process.

Bingo, there it was.

Turning to the stairs again, Yang confirmed that there was nobody she could see, and started heading towards the door leading to the bathroom. She made sure Ember Celica was loaded in the process, and went to push the door open.

It moved a fraction of an inch, before it got stuck against something. Yang jiggered around with the door for a moment, confirming it was stuck, and just to make sure, tried pulling the door open before confirming it was stuck.

Then she fired, blasting the door off of its hinges. It moved back slightly as it cracked open, but otherwise held in place. Pulling her fingers into the crack, Yang pried at the door, ripping it open and revealing a shadowy web behind it.

"Am I interrupting something?" Yang asked, as she looked at the blatant sign of Haseltii's Semblance.

There was a moment of silence, before the shadowy web disappeared, and a black spider limb shot out the door, slamming into Yang's stomach. It suddenly retracted, and Yang looked down to see the web appear where the limb had struck, before she was pulled inside and ended up slamming into a wall.

The shadow limb shot at Yang's face as she looked up, and she reached out to grab it before it reached her. As she put her hands around it, the shadow limb disappeared, leaving a shadow web behind that stuck Yang's hands together.

Ember Celica fired, jolting Yang's hands away enough that the web ripped apart, and she took a moment to evaluate the situation.

The room was _covered_ in webs. It was nearly impossible to see through the room with how many webs there were. A few faded out of focus, but then faded back in, repeating constantly in what was probably an attempt to keep Yang guessing on what the safe moves were.

Well, that was hardly important. Punching her fists together, Yang let her Aura flare up explosively, burning away at the shadows around her. The closest ones were disrupted by the force, ripping apart before vanishing, clearing the room enough for Yang to look around.

In the centre of the bathroom, standing by a mirror, was Haseltii. The woman looked back at Yang in annoyance, the four shadow limbs on her back visible as three of them dashed around the room, making more web connections.

The fourth was over by a set of closed toilet stalls, where Miltia was resting against a door. Her figure seemed unfocused, and a collection of black webbing covered the lower half of her face. She saw Yang, and gave a muffled, barely audible noise, before the fourth limb struck her back. Miltia flipped around as the leg moved to the roof, pulling her upwards before Miltia's bladed heel cut down the connection.

"I don't suppose I can have a little context here?" Yang asked. "I mean, besides Haseltii probably being a member of the White Fang."

Haseltii glared at Yang. "You shut your mouth, or-"

All four limbs suddenly shot at Yang, as most of the shadow webs disappeared except for the ones around Miltia, and Yang ducked down as the four spider-like legs tried to converge on her mouth. Yang briefly realised she'd left her jacket behind and that she could have used it to pull over her mouth as an extra layer of protection, but well, mistakes were made.

Still, she had ideas.

Rolling away from the four limbs, Yang fired at them and watched them shrink rapidly before anything could hit them. Some webs darkened in front of her as she ran, tripping up her right leg, and Yang let her Semblance flare up again to burn it off.

"Can we talk at least?" Yang asked. "We could just talk this out."

"There's nothing to talk about." Haseltii responded. "You humans don't know how lucky you have things."

"Spare me the spiel." Yang asked, as she ducked under another shadow spider leg, as Miltia cut her way out of the shadow web around her.

"Spiel?" Haseltii asked. "Is that all this is to you?"

Yang shrugged. "I'm not the terrorist here."

Haseltii asked. "Is that all it is to you? Good and Evil, with the ones taking action being in the wrong? Is the status quo something that is all powerful, here?"

Yang felt one of the shadow legs stab into her arm, making her grit her teeth as her Aura took a hit, before she was slammed into the roof. A bunch of shadow webs quickly came into formation as Yang shut upwards through them, wrapping her up a bit and requiring her to blast her Aura again in order to properly break out of the restraint.

As she hit the ground, Haseltii continued.

"There's no point talking to you." She stated. "You wouldn't understand. You couldn't possibly comprehend our problems-"

"What problems?" Yang snarled. "What, you're discriminated against? People hate Faunus? Look down on your kind? I don't think this is helping!"

"Exactly what I mean." Haseltii sighed. "You know a lot less than you think you do."

"Funny." Yang snapped. "That's what happens when you don't talk!"

"Fine, then." Haseltii decided. "You want to talk? Why don't we start with you telling me how your friend over there knew about the deal in advance?"

Haseltii pointed towards where Miltia was, and realised a moment too late that Miltia had cut herself free. A bladed heel cut through Haseltii's Aura in her arm, and Haseltii cried out, the webs shimmering and weakening as the four spider limbs on her back retreated into close range.

"You're not the one who gets to ask question." Yang noted, as she ran at Haseltii and punched her in the stomach. Haseltii stumbled, before grabbing Yang's arm. A connection took form between Yang's arm and Miltia's bladed heel, pulling one into the other, and Yang stifled a cry of pain as the blade pierced into her Aura.

"I'm not?" Haseltii asked. "Perhaps. we'll see if you change your tune soon enough."

The four shadow limbs shot towards Miltia, restraining her for a second, while Haseltii leaned over Yang and barred her teeth as she approached the younger girl's neck.

The fang penetrated Yang's Aura, and she felt a brief feeling of numbness, before there was suddenly pain

It was like her blood was on fire and was burning up her insides, slowly spreading through her system, down her neck and through her shoulders and arm. Her chest tightened, and Yang felt her lungs forcibly expel all air. She breathed in, and started coughing as her lungs felt like they were burning up.

"Do you want to try talking?" Haseltii asked, as she moved a hand over Miltia's mouth, dismissing the webs over them. Miltia took in a gaspy breath, and Haseltii waited for a moment before pushing the issue.

"Who told you?" Haseltii asked. "Is there a traitor? How much do they know?"

Miltia spat at her, and Haseltii blocked the spit with one of her spider leg things.

"Not the answer I was looking for." Haseltii replied, before stepping in and biting Miltia's neck. The other teenager cried out for a moment before biting her tongue, and Haseltii picked Yang up by her neck.

"Can you still here me?" Haseltii asked, holding up left arm in a fist. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Yang took a painful breath, trying to ignore the pain coursing through her veins.

"Not..." Yang groaned out, before slamming her head forward and hitting Haseltii in the nose. She stumbled back a step, and Yang closed her eyes to concentrate before letting her Aura explode outwards, forcing Haseltii to let her go.

Yang took a step forward and punched Haseltii again, letting off an explosive round of Ember Celica in the process, and knocked the spider Faunus back into Miltia.

The other girl, trying to concentrate, forced her leg out of the webbing, and slammed the bladed heel into Haseltii's neck.

There was a shattering sound, and Haseltii's Aura broke. All those remnants of her Semblance, the webs and the spider legs, vanished.

"...Damn." Haseltii swore.

"You done?" Yang asked. "You can't fight like this."

Haseltii laughed. "Oh, I don't need to."

She lunged at Yang, her teeth bared and ready to bite down again. Miltia reacted before Yang could, jamming the bladed heel into Haseltii's side, and making her stumble. Blood dripped from her side.

Yang shook her head to clear it, trying to force herself to concentrate on the important things. The poison was still in her, making her suffer,it felt like she was burning up-

Ignore it.

Yang stepped forward and punched Haseltii again. She groaned, as she looked up at Yang, and pulled Milti'a bladed heel out of her side.

Yang's hand reached around Haseltii's neck, and pushed her into the wall. Haseltii struggled, and the exertion of holding Haseltii in place caused Yang's muscles to scream, so much pain burning through them.

"How..." She groaned. "Fucking hurts. How do I make it..."

She groaned again, as her lungs started restricting on her again.

"It'll fade with time." Haseltii replied. "Maybe. Who knows?"

Yang punched her, and Haseltii cried out, before turning back at Yang with a bloodied nose.

"Start co-operating." Yang groaned. "You've lost. Otoko's with a friend of mine, we have more people than you, and since you're White Fang, that means our suspicions have been confirmed. We know who the rest of your team are. You're finished. So I'd suggest you start co-operating."

Haseltii laughed. "Co-operate? Why bother? This victory... Didn't buy you anything."

Yang slammed her back, into the wall. "What does _that_ mean? Give me an answer, damn it!"

With a bit of a chuckle, Haseltii trailed off and went silent.

Unconscious. Damn it, Yang must've hit her too hard.

Dropping the Faunus, Yang clutched at her chest as the pain struck through her again.

Ugh. It was getting worse. For now, not by much, but if it gets much worse...

Looking up, Yang saw Miltia struggling to her feet. "Are we done here?"

Yang took a moment to nod. "Yeah. Done. With her, at least."

 **[X] ...And done for the night. She hadn't taken too much damage, but was in a lot of pain right now. Stay here and wait for Four.**  
 **[X] ...Four might appreciate some back-up, just in case. Miltia could watch Haseltii, Yang should make sure everything was fine for everyone.**


	71. Aftermath

**[X] ...And done for the night. She hadn't taken too much damage, but was in a lot of pain right now. Stay here and wait for Four.**

Yang took a moment to massage a muscle on her left arm, as she felt it starting to seize up in pain. Gritting her teeth, Yang looked towards the broken door for a moment, then sighed.

Damn it. The poison stuff was still in her system, and it was only getting worse. If she ran off to help Four like this, she'd probably get distracted from the pain or just get in the way.

She wasn't strong enough to work through this just yet.

Miltia leaned over as well, clutching at her stomach. "Argh! What the hell was that poison!"

"I don't know." Yang hissed. "Let's just... Where's my scroll..."

She reached into her pocket, and pulled out the device. Quickly moving into the chat log that Four had set up, Yang ignored any prior messages, and instantly put her own in.

 _Got one_. Yang typed down. **Haseltii confirmed herself as White Fang, Miltia and I beat her in the bathroom the floor under the Fight Club. Got a bite of both of us. Poison hurts.**

As she sent the message, Yang pocketed her scroll again, and took a step towards Miltia. "Hey, are you alright?"

"What do you think?" Miltia snapped. Then she winced, putting a hand over her eye. "Sorry, sorry. I just..."

Yang shook her head. "No, it's fine. I know you're hurt. Just wanted to know how you were coping."

"...Yeah, sorry." Miltia groaned. "I'm... I can deal for now."

Yang felt her skull pounding, a pulsing rhythm hitting her as she stumbled back, putting a hand on her forehead.

Groaning, Yang shook her head, and took a moment to wander towards Haseltii a bit.

"...We should move her." Yang muttered. "We had the building security helping us out, right? We should get them to give us a hand-"

There were footsteps from outside the room, and Yang looked over by the broken pieces of door scattered on the ground, in time to see someone step in the path of the door.

Decadus stood in the doorway, rubbing his shoulder slightly. "Do the two of you need help?"

"I'm fine." Yang and Miltia said simultaneously.

"You mentioned having that poison in your veins?" Decadus asked. "It must be... Ah, agonising."

Yang frowned. "Wait, didn't she bite you too? How are you so much better off?"

"There was a difference in circumstance." Decadus replied. "You were bitten in an out of the way location, I was bitten in the middle of a crowd. Perhaps Haseltii could control how painful to make something. Or perhaps my pain resistance is better than yours."

Yang decided she didn't care enough, and just leaned down to pick up Haseltii.

"Allow me." Decadus insisted. "You should just endure the pain, for now. It'll get worse in a moment, so prepare yourself."

Yang ignored him, grabbing Haseltii's arm and throwing it over her shoulder. Then, making sure Yang wrapped her arm around Haseltii, Yang picked up the larger spider Faunus, and tried to step forward with her. Her leg stumbled as pain shot up it, and she barely kept her balance.

"I can do this." Yang insisted. "Do you have anywhere to put here?"

"I had a discussion with the owner of the building." Decadus said. "There's a room on the top floor for us. The crowd up there has dispersed enough that we can get there without issue, but..."

Decadus looked at Yang and Haseltii. "Are you sure you can handle this, Yang?"

"I can do this." Yang insisted, taking a step forward. The pain shot up her leg and intensified, burning her up, and her muscles seized as she cried out.

Miltia's arm struck out to catch Yang as she fell, and she grunted as the weight of both the yellow haired human and the spider Faunus weighed down on her. Decadus stepped forward, grabbing Haseltii to take the weight off of the two younger girls.

"I insist." Decadus stated. "Four uses me as her pack mule as it is, I... Oh, I don't mind."

"...Fine." Yang relented. "Let's go, then. Wait for everything to finish up. I'm sure Four with have some good news Four us."

Decadus groaned, and Yang was suddenly caught by the warring desires for puns and her equally powerful if less long-lived desire to not know the reasoning behind Decadus'... Anything.

Then Yang's neck throbbed and her hand shot to where she was bitten, as she groaned again, stifling a cry of pain in the process. She leaned against the sink as Decadus exited the room, and he turned back as he saw Yang trying to stand.

The pain was just getting worse, and her vision was blurring a bit. Taking a shuddery breath through the pain in her lungs, Yang took step out the door as well. Turning back to Miltia, Yang offered a hand.

"Need some help?" Yang asked.

Miltia shook her head, wiping some sweat of her brow in the process. "I'm good."

Yang stumbled forward again, rubbing the bite mark on her neck as it started to itch.

Stumbling through, Yang started following Decadus to the room prepared for them.

* * *

Lying down on a small bed in the corner, Yang bit down on a rubber ball that had been provided, to stop her from crying out. Miltia was rested on another bed in the room, and the unconscious Haseltii was tied down and handcuffed to a third. Decadus was standing by the door of the room, flicking through a book as he paced back and forth between Miltia.

"There has to be some form of Aura manipulation trick that could help here." He explained, as he hovered a hand over Miltia. She made some sort of sound, and Decadus paced away from her.

"Haseltii's poison, it bypassed your Aura to bite into you. Either the injection process, or the poison itself, would then be something that used Aura to run through the system in the first place."

Stepping towards Yang, Decadus raised his hand again, and she felt a moment of serenity flow through her. Her Aura twisted around, and for a moment, she couldn't feel anything.

"Sensation returned slowly, as Decadus paced away again, flicking through the pages of his book.

"There has to be two possibilities, then." Decadus continued. "Either the poison has Haseltii's Aura infused in it, meaning it will eventually burn itself out by conflicting with your Aura, or it's nature is something that means your Aura is unable to counter it. If it's the latter, it's possible to determine how to counter the poison by getting a sample of it, such as the bit that flows through my blood, and using that to identify the poison and purge it from your system."

He paced over to Miltia again, as Yang's ability to feel things returned, and she started driving her nails into her palm to try and ignore the greater pain.

"Alternatively, if it's the former, then there's nothing really I can do." Decadus admitted. "In that case, simply guiding your Aura's into killing the pain would be more successful. Unfortunately, _stopping_ pain is not something I've been interested in prior to this, so you'll have to wait for Four's arrival for a better solution than me simply removing your ability to feel anything."

He continued going back and forth, as Yang tried to ignore the pain and let Decadus use his Aura to touch at hers.

It was fine. She'd deal with the pain. It was turning on and off again, over and over. Yang closed her eyes as she laid back, with Decadus standing over her and depriving her of her ability to feel sensations, and just tried to relax.

She'd done alright. Beat up Haseltii. She wasn't strong enough for her to trust herself with working through the poison in a fight, but she'd endure it as she was now.

She wasn't going to let a little bit of pain beat he-

Once again, Decadus' little Aura manipulation started reversing itself, and Yand bit down more on the rubber ball as she tried to ignore the pain. It intensified, more and more, and Yang could feel herself nearly biting through the rubber before Decadus cut off her ability to feel anything again.

Yang tried to let herself just dose off a bit while she waited for time to pass, and quickly settling into a cycle.

Feel nothing. Rest.

Feel pain. Endure.

On and off, back and forth, the cycle repeated for a time.

Eventually, in a period of time that Yang lost track of, the young Huntress heard the door opened, and looked up towards it.

Four stepped in, looking somewhat annoyed. "Is everyone okay in here?"

Decadus turned to Four as she spoke. "I-"

"Not you." Four sighed. "Yang, Miltia, you two still poisoned?"

Yang said something that was muffled by the rubber ball she was biting down on, and Four shot Decadus a suspicious look. A moment later, Yang spat it out, and immediately cried out in pain as she felt her muscles burning.

"Hurts..." Yang groaned, between gritted teeth.

Four stepped forward, and put a hand over Yang's head. "This is going to hurt a lot for a moment, then not at all. Bear with me."

Four's Aura extended, and melded with Yang's, causing her to scream. The pain was all Yang was aware of for a moment, and took a moment to fade. Once it did fade, it took her a moment to realise something was touching her head, and another moment to remember who's hand it was.

"How's that?" Four asked. "It might feel a bit weird to touch something, but you shouldn't be in pain anymore. Did it work?"

"...I think it worked." Yang confirmed. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Four acknowledged. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go fix Miltia..."

She wandered off, and Yang got off her small bed a moment later. She looked over, as Four repeated the process with Miltia.

"How'd it go?" Yang asked, as Four finished.

"Well, I managed to convince Otoko not to sell to the White Fang." Four confirmed. "And bought out all her Ice and Water Dust. Fuyu managed to find the human you fought waiting in an alleyway, and managed to restrain him. I'll collect him sooner or later, but for now..."

Four looked over at Haseltii.

"...We got her." Four confirmed. "Which is nice. But the third one, she got away. Nobody saw her leave, but the people at security saw they lost her when she stepped underneath a camera and just vanished."

"Great." Yang sighed. "Still, Haseltii would have been the most important person, right? She's the oldest, so likely most experienced?"

Four shrugged. "Who knows? That's how it should work, but old people have a habit of being incompetent. One's younger then most bureaucrats and business owners in Atlas, but she's also the best somehow. Won't know until interrogation time."

Looking down on Haseltii, Four sighed. "Getting information takes ages, but I'll let you know when I'm done, Yang."

"Sure." Yang waved off.

"Thanks for your help." Four nodded. "I mean it. You're good at this. That poison must've hurt and you don't look like you have Decadus' failing as a human being-"

Decadus let out a pained groan in the corner.

"-So I'm impression you managed to finish a fight with it in you. Truly, to have you at my side makes the task of Justice so much easier."

Four flicked her hair back and posed slightly, which made Yang chuckle.

"Yeah, yeah." Yang sighed. "How late is it, anyway? I need to get back home soon."

"I understand." Four nodded. "Miltia, do you mind walking Yang home just to make sure the chameleon doesn't try anything?"

"I'll do it." Miltia nodded, with a smile of her own. "I did alright too, didn't I?"

"You were great." Yang confirmed. "She was going for another bite of me when you stabbed her with your heel, and if that made things worse... Well, thanks for stopping that."

Miltia smiled, as she got off her bed. "Let's go then."

* * *

Miltia waved as she wandered off, and Yang walked down the homeward stretch to her home. The trees surrounding the path looked somewhat inviting, but she was starting to feel tired. Between the exhaustion that came from enduring the pain and the lateness of her return, Yang just wanted to go home and go straight to bed.

As her home came within sight, Yang spotted a brief moment of movement from out the front. The dog, Zwei, was running around the front, something carried in his mouth. As Yang approached, she observed, as Zwei carreid whatever it was to...

Oh. There's Ruby.

She was sitting on the grass in front of the house, lazily throwing the ball into the distance for Zwei to retrieve and return. Her eyes were focused away from the path, and as Yang looked at her, the yellow haired teen could have sworn that Ruby looked somewhat...

Melancholic, almost.

Zwei barked, dropping the ball, as the dog noticed Yang. Ruby followed it's gaze, and as her sister watched, Ruby's expression lit up, slowly, as she stood up.

"Yang!" Ruby declared, with enthusiasm. "I was waiting for you. Dad's already asleep and I didn't know if you had a key, so I stayed up a bit waiting for you to get home."

Yang smiled. "Thanks."

...She wanted to talk to Ruby earlier, didn't she?

It took her a moment to remember why. It had something to do with Miltia, hadn't it? Miltia, and her sister, Melanie...

Ah, right. They'd had a falling out. Miltia had felt like Melanie wasn't paying any attention to her problems, and Yang was feeling overly paranoid at the idea of Ruby potentially being hurt in the same way as Miltia had.

...Damn, she was tired. If just remembering that was so hard-

Well, she could have the conversation another time, maybe? If she was this tired, she'd find a chance to talk to Ruby later...

 **[X] Yeah, that seemed like a good idea. Yang needed to get some sleep. Nothing saying she couldn't do it later.**  
 **[X] No, she needed to do this now. If she makes excuses now, she'll keep making excuses. Get it over with.**


	72. Can You Hear Me?

**[X] No, she needed to do this now. If she makes excuses now, she'll keep making excuses. Get it over with.**

Standing in front of the door to the house, Yang sighed.

No point putting this off any further. She needed to have a talk with Ruby sooner or later, and if she delayed again now, who was to say she wouldn't find an excuse later?

Besides, she was being paranoid. This wouldn't take long. Just talk to Ruby for a bit, confirm everything's fine, go to bed like a champion.

Simple enough.

Opening the door in front of her, Yang stepped in, and heard Ruby walking in behind her.

"Hey, what did Dad say to do with the dog again?" Yang asked.

"Put him out the back." Ruby nodded. "Hold on, I'll just do that quickly before I go to bed."

Ruby leaned down and clicked her fingers to make sure Zwei was paying attention, then led the dog inside and through the house, towards the back door. Yang watched her walk off for a moment, before walking to the base of the stairs, and leaning against it.

What was she even supposed to say here? She wasn't sure. She didn't want to make it seem like something was wrong on her end, but at the same time, she wanted to emphasis that she wanted to make sure everything was okay on both ends.

She just didn't know what to say.

...Still, she had to try, didn't she? If there was a problem- Which there probably wasn't, but if- Then Yang wanted to nip it in the bud before it caused anything else. The little talk to Miltia before the Fight Club had made it abundantly clear that she wasn't coping well, even if she denied it, and, well...

Yang hadn't forgotten, what her dad was like back when she was a kid. She tried not to think about it, but he'd been kind of distant for years. Even with Ruby around, he always let people do their own things. It hadn't been up until Yang nearly messed up looking for her mother that he'd changed, and even if that was years ago, Yang didn't want Ruby feeling the same way Yang had back then.

Ruby didn't have enough people she could look up to. Taiyang had a tendency to be distant, Qrow kept disappearing, and that just left Yang to be someone to look out for her. That was the way it'd been in...

Well, forever.

...She was just getting paranoid. It was fine. Everything was fine. She'd just talk to Ruby, confirm everything is fine, laugh it off, and it'd be fine. Nothing to worry about.

Yang heard a door closing a bit away, and waited a moment. Before long, Ruby stepped around the corner, and nearly bumped into Yang before the younger sister noticed the older sister standing in the way of the stairs.

"...Yang?" Ruby asked. "You're still up?"

Yang thought for a moment, then sighed. She wasn't good with just talking. She'd just go ahead and see how it went.

"Just wanted to have a bit of a talk." Yang tried. "I was talking to Miltia a bit earlier, and it got me thinking. Mind if we talk for a moment?"

Ruby's eyes flicked up the stairs for a moment, before returning to Yang. "...Yeah, okay."

Stretching a bit, Yang yawned, and walked over to the nearby table. She sat on a chair and rested against a table, noting how odd it felt for her elbow to lean against the wood with Four's pain blocking trick thingy. She couldn't feel any friction, texture or design to it. Like she was just touching something that had no real qualities to it.

She didn't know how to think of it any better than that.

"What did you want to talk about?" Ruby asked, looking a bit nervous. Was she worried that Yang would have some bad news? Given what had happened, she wouldn't blame Ruby for that...

"Just wanted to make sure everything was okay." Yang replied. "Miltia, she... Well, apparently she and her sister had a disagreement recently, and it occurred to me that we hadn't talked in a while. Not about anything important. So I just wanted to make sure everything was okay, there was nothing you needed to get off your chest or anything."

Ruby looked at Yang for a moment, and Yang suddenly felt very stupid. No, of course Ruby didn't care about anything, she was Ruby, she was understanding enough to understand that Yang needed to get stronger to look after her, she didn't need to-

"Well..." Ruby began, cutting off Yang's train of thought before trailing off. "It's just..."

Yang watched Ruby, not sure what to think. Was she about to reveal some sort of problem? Was she just getting embarrassed that Yang tried to talk about something so important and she didn't have anything to say?

Ruby took a breath, and eventually spoke. "Yang, don't take this the wrong way please, but... Aren't you pushing yourself too much?"

Yang froze, as she looked at Ruby. Her brain stopped, as she tried to divine what Ruby could possibly mean with her words.

"It's just..." Ruby continued. "Ever since we got back from Mountain Glenn, you've been kind of... Trying too hard."

Trying too hard? How do you try too hard? That's not how things worked. You try your hardest at the important things, you can't try too hard to-

"I know you're just worried." Ruby said. "But... At school, you hover over me, barely talk to other people, and then barely talk to me there. You go out each night. And then... There's a crime in progress and you drop what should be a fun day to go interfere, go too far, end up going to hospital and..."

She trailed off, before picking up again. "Are you okay, Yang?"

Yang stared for a moment, before forcing herself to smile. "Is that all, Ruby? She tried to dismiss it. "Don't worry, I'm-"

"Are you?" Ruby asked. "Fine, I mean? You say you're okay, but you can't just keep doing this. You didn't get hurt bad in the fight, but what if you did? What if you do next time? Why did you have to fight in the first place? Why chase after the girl with the Dust crystals?"

"Because it was the right thing to do." Yang replied, frowning. "You would have done the sa-"

"Ren told me." Ruby declared, and Yang went silent.

The silence hung in the air for a moment, before Ruby continued.

"He was looking for you today. I went down to the gym in the city to try and practice a bit, and he was looking for you there. He told me how bad it was, Yang. He told me they had to knock you out to make you stop."

Yang took in a shuddering breath, before gulping and replying. "He's... That's an exaggeration-"

"Is it?" Ruby asked. "I... I didn't tell Dad because I didn't want him to worry, but Yang, please, don't make this harder."

"Why does it matter?" Yang asked. "Okay, maybe I kept going when I should have stopped, lost my temper when that girl broke my arm-"

"What happened to your cane when you went out to talk to Miltia, Yang?" Ruby asked.

Yang winced, but recovered quickly. "I don't know what you mea-"

"They're not the same." Ruby interrupted. "You went out with one, came back with a similar one. Different, but similar. Didn't talk about it. I almost thought I imagined it, until you reacted like that."

Yang clenched her hand under the table for a moment.

Damn it, _damn it_ , she'd slipped up. Ruby was being worried about her and pressing her on things that would worry her more and Yang didn't know how to make her stop-

"Ren said it was like you needed a win." Ruby continued. "Is that what this is about? You lost to Dito, so now you need to win?"

"I-" Yang realised after a moment that she was raising her voice, so she took a breath to calm down. "...Ruby, if you're worried because he beat me-"

"You only fought him because he and Five had kidnapped me in the first place." Ruby continued. "I'm allowed to worry."

"Ruby, it's not your faul-"

"Then why are you acting like this?" Ruby asked. She looked up from the table, looking Yang in the eye, and the older girl suddenly realised that her eyes were starting to water. "I... I'm not an idiot, Yang. You nearly die trying to save me, then you get super protective and keep getting into fights like this? You're going to get yourself hurt over me!"

"It's fine!" Yang insisted, cursing herself. Ruby thought it was her fault? Yang didn't want that. Yang didn't want that at all. She was supposed to make Ruby feel safe and happy, not like she was making things worse.

"When was the last time you tried to look for your mum, Yang?" Ruby asked suddenly.

The question hit Yang like a punch to the stomach. "...What-"

"Dad told me you were still looking." Ruby noted. "You'd check every once in a while, trying to find a new lead. You have a picture, or something. When was the last time you even thought about trying to find her?"

...It had been a while, but that didn't mean anything.

"Why does that matter?" Yang asked. "I put that aside until I could prote-"

And suddenly, Yang realised what she was saying.

"Until you could protect me?" Ruby asked, finishing Yang's statement. "See? You're going too far. You... You got hurt and now you're trying to go too far in the other direction to make up for it."

"I'm trying to learn from my mistake." Yang corrected, accepting that she'd lost that ground. "That's what people do, Ruby. They make a mistake, they try not to make it again. Like-"

"Like when Uncle Qrow had to save us when we were small?" Ruby asked, her voice soft. "When you dragged me with you to look for your mother?"

Yang's hand clenched reflexively. "What are you-"

"You apologised, Yang." Ruby continued. "You said you didn't mean anything bad, remember? You just focused on that one thing and nearly got us _killed_ over it."

"I _know_ , I messed up, but-"

"And now you're doing it again!" Ruby nearly shouted. "You... You're focusing _too much_ , thinking about how you _lost_ , thinking you need to be _better_ , and you're ignoring the dangers! It's the same thing all over again!"

Like so much of this conversation, hearing Ruby say those words was like a knife through Yang's heart. "I-"

Ruby banged the table with her fist, a teardrop landing beside it a moment later. "I don't want to see you get hurt, Yang." She continued. "And you're doing it because of me. You're tearing yourself apart because I'm not good enough and I need protection."

Yang pushed away from the table, standing from her chair in the process. "Ruby, that's not true-"

The red cloaked girl's hand trembled. "Please, Yang... This isn't helping. I know, you're... You're just trying to be there for me, but you're not, you're out of reach and you won't listen to me and it's been this long before you even let me try to help you, and you're just trying to brush it off like it's n-nothing..."

She made a sound that sounded like a sob, before she tried to take a breath. Tried to calm herself. Tried to be strong.

For _Yang_.

That's...

That's not how it's supposed to work. The big sister is supposed to be strong for the little sister, not the other way around. The little sister's supposed to trust the big sister enough to not have to be strong, to just let it out and not hide the fact that they're crying and _Ruby was crying_ and it was all because Yang was too _stupid_ too _terrible_ to pay attention, she...

...Ruby was right, wasn't she? She'd made the same mistakes all over again.

Back on that day, years ago, when Yang had tried to look for clues about her mother...

She was supposed to look after Ruby then, but she'd been too blind. All she could focus on was her mother, and the chance that she'd be able to help her father pay may attention. And then the two of them nearly died for it, would have _died_ if it wasn't for Uncle Qrow, and Yang had to cope with the fact that she'd nearly gotten Ruby killed when she was supposed to be looking out for her.

She had promised, hadn't she? Not to make that same mistake again. To pay attention, look after Ruby, care for her like her dad was never able to, be the one person she could rely on. And then what?

Yang makes a mistake and tries to learn from it and ends up making Ruby feel like _this_ when she was just trying to make things better.

All because she'd been so focused on being strong enough to care for Ruby, that she completely forgot to _actually_ care for Ruby.

And now this was happening. One of the worst situations Yang could end up finding herself in. Ruby, in front of her, in tears, trying her best to hold it together because she didn't trust Yang to let it out, because she was like this _because_ Yang had acted like she had.

Some big sister she was.

 **[X] ...She'd caused this. She'd messed up. It was on her to try and start making things better. Comfort her.**  
 **[X] ...Ruby deserved better than this. Than having a big sister who kept doing this to her. Just leave.**


	73. Gold

**[X] ...She'd caused this. She'd messed up. It was on her to try and start making things better. Comfort her.**

When you fall, you get back up. When you fail, you try again. A failure's only a failure when you let it stand unanswered, and every time you fail is a chance to improve. Come back stronger. Keep moving forward.

That should be simple enough, shouldn't it? Learn from your mistakes, and don't make them again. Move past them. Don't let them happen again. It can't be that hard, doing that. If you just don't make the same mistakes again, then eventually you stop making mistakes.

Ruby was crying.

When Five had stepped in, Yang was powerless. Nobody had been able to stop her from taking Ruby, nobody had known what was happening to her. It seemed like everything used to try and find Five ended in another show of Five's power. Going to the Fight Club had left Yang at Melanie's mercy until her father had stepped in. Trying to ambush her at Mountain Glenn resulted in Qrow's capture, torture and loss of limb. Trying to rush to save Qrow resulting in Yang nearly dying, and being _completely powerless_ against Dito.

Yang couldn't just forget it. Even if she wanted to. Ever since that day, just about everything seemed to remind her of it.

The scar on her leg which refused to heal. The pain in her stomach which returned again and again. The feeling of her shortened hair ending at the base of her neck, much shorter than it once was even if it had grown since the fight with Dito.

Her own body just kept reminding her of her weakness, of her failure, with every step she took. Every time her hair shuffled enough to brush against her neck, every time her Aura fell low enough for the pain to return, the reminders were with her constantly.

So she had to get stronger, right? After Ruby had watched her nearly die, Yang couldn't be weak for her. She needed to get stronger, so she could protect her sister and ensure she'd never have a reason to cry again.

Ruby was crying.

She had to get stronger, didn't she? Who cared about anything else as long as she got stronger, right? She couldn't stand it if she made people worry about her because she was too weak, that's not how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be stronger than that. She was supposed to be the one worrying about people, not the other way around.

How would it be the wrong thing, to try and overcome failure? And she'd been failing so much recently, so she had to overcome all of that. Push herself harder, get stronger, go beyond this weak self and get strong enough that she'd stop failing. How else was she supposed to protect Ruby?

There wasn't anything wrong about that, was there? About getting stronger now, determining what she needs to do to succeed in the future, right? It wasn't hurting anyone, right?

Ruby was crying, and Yang realised she'd never been more wrong about anything in her life.

What she was doing, trying to get stronger, ignoring everything else, that was the biggest threat to Ruby right now. Not to her life, sure, but how can Yang consider that a good thing when she was the one who had made Ruby like this?

She was pathetic. Too blind to notice what she was doing, too stupid to even stop to think about it. It was bad enough she wasn't strong enough for Ruby, but now she was actively making things worse by pushing herself too far.

Stepping around the table, Yang rushed to Ruby's side, and wrapped her arms around her little sister.

Ruby's breath stopped for a moment in shock, before Yang started speaking.

"I'm such an idiot..." She muttered, her head near Ruby's ear. "I... Damn it, I'm sorry, I..."

"Yang?" Ruby asked, returning the hug. "I... Are you-"

Yang nearly responded, before she stopped herself. What was she even going to say? What could she say? How was she supposed to make up for this?

...She had to try something, though. She couldn't afford to just sit and let Ruby think the worse, not now.

"I didn't want to hurt you." Yang whispered, feeling her own eyes dampen in the process. "I just... I'm not good enough. I can't..."

"I don't care." Ruby replied, holding Yang tighter. "I d-don't care if you're good enough or anything. I just want you to be you. I don't want a protector, I want my sister. I don't want the stranger who disappears to get in fights she can't win, I want the sister who'll enjoy a day out with friends and pretend the whole cookie thing matters more than it does and..."

She sobs a bit, and Yang starts trying to reassure her. "It's okay, Ruby. I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't want this. I just wanted you to be okay too."

"H-How am I supposed to be okay when you're doing this to yourself?" Ruby whimpered.

Yang didn't have an answer to that.

She should have seen this. How blind could she have been to miss it? Ruby's a kind person, a simple soul, someone who doesn't want much. She just wants people to be happy. How could she possibly be happy if Yang was hurting herself?

How was that worth it?

She wasn't strong enough. She knew that well enough. And she needed to get stronger. But this wasn't the right way to go about it. Not if it was making Ruby cry. Not if it was hurting her as much as anything else.

What was she supposed to do?

She didn't know. She just didn't know. She had to get stronger so Ruby wouldn't have to worry, but if she did that then she'd make Ruby worry. She couldn't just pretend that nothing had happened, but how was she supposed to make sure Ruby kept smiling if she couldn't forget?

She didn't know.

But she did know one thing. She'd been the person who'd hurt Ruby the most, since Five had taken her. She couldn't let that continue. She'd...

She'd figure something out. She didn't know what yet, but she'd figure it out.

That was all she could do, wasn't it? Just try to figure out an answer. And...

Well, she'd just need to not make this mistake again. The mistake of getting so obsessed over avoiding a mistake that she made new ones. There had to be a balance, and even if she didn't know what it was, she'd find it.

She had to. For Ruby's sake.

Just standing over the chair, hugging her little sister and crying into her shoulder, Yang made that resolution. She'd make things better. Somehow.

What kind of big sister would she be if she didn't try?

* * *

The morning after was a quiet affair. Yang's father had left while the girls were still asleep, having to deal with work, and that left Yang and Ruby alone in the house.

And as she wandered around the building, making breakfast while the television droned on with the latest in news, Yang tried to think about what to do when Ruby woke up.

...She was going to stay here today, Yang decided. After yesterday, Yang couldn't just leave. She didn't know what to do, but she had to start trying. And first on the list of things to start working better, was to try and be there for her sister more.

Yang...

Yang really needed to have a talk with her dad, when he came back from work. In hindsight, when she was a kid, she might have been unfair to him. She hadn't noticed anything herself until Ruby had pointed it out, so she shouldn't have judging him as much for being unable to move past her mothers death.

Maybe he'd be able to help Yang figure out what to do to start moving forward again. He actually seemed to be holding it together better than anyone after Five's whole thing, so maybe he'd be able to give Yang some hints and tips.

"...And in other news, reports from Atlas indicate something happening behind the scenes. Correspondents monitoring the political situation in Atlas report a sudden commotion from the Schnee family, who are scrambling to alert certain people of something in private while preparing a news briefing. We'll have more in..."

Yang turned out the news, as she continued on with making some food. While she was at it, she pulled out a second bowl and started making some more cereal, for when Ruby woke up. She... Might appreciate it? It might help?

It should make her feel better, at least. Pumpkin Pete's wasn't the healthiest brand in the world, but the ChoCublate Flavour was at least delicious. A little bit of sugar in the morning might help Ruby feel a bit better after last night. And the last few months in general, but last night specifically had Ruby bawling her eyes out because Yang was being too much of a stubborn idiot.

Well, even if the cereal itself didn't work, the gesture itself might. Show she wasn't focusing on herself as much.

"...Press meeting in a few minutes, with a representative of the Schnee Dust Corporation and Family, to discuss whatever news could have lead to such an sudden shift in the stock market, on this scale..."

There were footsteps from above Yang, down the stairs, as she poured some milk in the two bowls of cereal. As Yang danced around the kitchen, putting the milk back in the fridge, before dropping by the draws and pulling out a pair of spoons.

The two bowls of cereal made, Yang turned towards the entrance of the kitchen as Ruby stepped in.

"Hey, Rubes." Yang greeted, holding out a bowl in her direction. "Hungry?"

Ruby blinked, as she looked at the bowl. "...Did you make breakfast?"

"No, I made dinner, the sky just fell behind." Yang joked.

Ruby smiled for a moment, before taking the bowl. "Thanks, Yang."

"So, are you doing anything today?" Yang asked. "We've got the day off, so if you want to do something, we can."

Ruby thought on it for a moment.

"...I was thinking about working on my scythework today." Ruby mused. "But... Do you think we could just spend the day at home today? Just sitting around? I just want to relax today. Not do anything. Unwind a bit."

"...Yeah, okay." Yang agreed. Sitting around and doing nothing would be...

Well, it didn't sit right with her, but it's what Ruby wanted.

An idea occurred to her suddenly. "Hey, do you mind if I make a call real fast? I'll join you for breakfast in a moment, just want to let someone in real fast."

Ruby looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "...Yeah, okay. I'll just watch the news for a bit, okay?"

"Sure." Yang nodded. "Be there in a moment."

Ruby nodded, took her bowl, and stepped out of the room. Reaching into her pocket, Yang moved to pull out her scroll, before realising that she had left it to charge in her room.

A minute later, she'd wandered up the stairs and gotten to her scroll. It took a moment to dial up a number, and the other party woke up before long.

"Hello?" The voice on the other side asked. "What is it?"

"Hey, Four." Yang waved. "How're you?"

"I'm fine." Four sighed. "I was in the middle of working over Haseltii. I've got something working, just need to give it some more time, before I know what we're working with. She let something slip that I'm looking into, so it won't take too much time if I research as well. More importantly, what did you want?"

"...Just wanted to let you know." Yang admitted. "I... Well, sorry if I'm being unfair to you here, but I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to be much more help with the whole White Fang hunt thing."

It occurred to Yang that using the word hunt actually sounded a bit racist. It might not have been, man hunt was an actual term used to describe an organised search for a criminal, but getting into details would take time if she used it in future and someone took it the wrong way. Probably best to not use that wording again.

"What's wrong?" Four asked. "If your dad's getting in the way, I could abduct you for a bit so you can-"

"No, nothing like that." Yang replied. "It's just... I've been really unfair on Ruby, recently. She's been worried sick about me and I've been an idiot and not noticed. I... I want her to feel better, and one of the thing she said specifically was I was pushing myself too much. So... I'm trying to take it easy with her for a bit, if that makes sense?"

"...I get it." Four said, before noticing how frosty her tone was. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to sound upset. But you've been a great help, Yang. It's sad to see you doing your own thing. Justice could use someone like you."

"Sorry." Yang apologised sheepishly. "But... Well, she's my sister. I can't just ignore her."

"I understand." Four assured her. "Oh, speaking of sisters, are you watching the news?"

"It's on downstairs." Yang replied. "Why?"

"Go and have a look, One's about to do a thing. Ooh, it's nearly on. Talk to you later, Yang."

Four hung up before Yang could say goodbye, and as Yang put her scroll back on charge, she wondered for a moment.

...Yeah, she definitely wanted to see what One was about to do that was going to be news worthy.

Bolting out of her room and down the stairs, Yang quickly got to the lounge room, just as the news speaker started talking.

The camera had cut to some sort of press briefing with the Schnee snowflake symbol in the background, and before Ruby could ask who Yang had been talking to, the murmuring of the reporters on camera died down, reduced to barely audible, as two figures walked in.

The one in the back, smaller and less focused, was a face Yang recognised. That was a Schnee. Not one she knew well, but the Heiress of the company was famous enough to turn up on television every once and a while. She was a singer, apparently. But the sad looking Weiss Schnee wasn't exactly the priority on Yang's mind.

Not when One was the one leading Weiss on stage.

"Thank you for meeting me here today." One said, as she spoke into the mic. "And I'm afraid I have tragic news. I regret to inform you that, late last night, the Schnee Dust Corporation CEO, Jacques Schnee, lost his life in a hunting accident."

The barely audible murmuring from a moment ago fell into silence completely, and a moment after the silence died down, One continued.

"The source of Mister Schnee's injuries wasn't identified at the time, but he was rushed back to Atlas for medical treatment immediately. However, his wounds refused to heal, and he died before he could be treated at a proper facility. He died within walking distance of the site of his wife's death."

...Shit, that was pretty poor luck. That Weiss girl seemed to be unfocused as she stared ahead, there for show more than anything. How much must she be hurting, losing two parents in so short a time?

"With the death of Jacques, there are people who must be wondering about the future of the company. Already, investors have considered pulling out with the loss of the man who managed this company so well, while other people are offering new deals to the girl who inherited the company. However, all should rest assured, the Schnee Dust Corporation will not simply be weakened with the loss of it's management."

"In the words of Nicholas Schnee, 'The importance of our work lies in the legacy left behind.' Though his legacy will be controversial, Mister Schnee understood the wisdom of his words. The company has not been weakened in his absence. His pride would allow nothing less than to live up to the words of his father in law and predecessor. Even in his absence, the Schnee Dust Corporation stands firm. People have gathered to guide the new owner of the corporation until she can do it herself. Our profits have not dropped."

"In his lifetime, Jacques Schnee expanded the rate of growth of the SDC, increased profits in thousands of different areas, and has funded military and humanitarian projects which have changed the shape of Atlas. Most important, to assume that his death is a crippling blow is to underestimate his greatest legacy. The daughter of Jacques, Weiss Schnee, is prepared to do what she must to continue her father's legacy."

Closing her eyes, One continued even more onwards. "The legacy most important is how the world is shaped when you leave it, compared to when you entered. The removal of flaws in the world, and the ability to counter new ones. While the White Fang primarily blame their existence on Mister Schnee, as several other protest groups claim, but the Kingdoms have never been safer, thanks to his management of the Dust mining projects."

"The world is changing, and is no longer the world that it was when Jacques Schnee married into the company and took it over several decades ago. Thanks to his effort, we are a more prosperous people. Death rates from Grimm have dropped to an all time low, the funding for Atlas Specialists has increased dramatically, and the technology he funded the research of have made it so much simpler to accomplish the objectives they have been made for. Defence automata are at a new peak of quality, mining machines have made it so much easier to mine Dust without disrupting the conditions which create it."

"Under the guidance of Jacques Schnee, the Schnee Dust Corporation has changed the world at an immense pace in these last few years..."

One's eyes opened, and they shone a brilliant red as she smiled.

"...And in the years to come, we hope to write a legacy that puts that pace to shame."

 **Looks like it's time for another Gaiden Arc! You have a choice between-**

 **Oh, nevermind, Blake's is kinda important and literally unskippable.**

 **Or we can have an outside look at Blake, alternatively?**

 **[X] Blake Gaiden: Candle Burns From Both Ends**  
 **[X] Ilia Gaiden: Burnt Children Dread the Flame**


	74. Burnt

**[X] Blake Gaiden: Candle Burns From Both Ends**

 _She could hear growling around her, over the heat. The flames weren't dying down. The opposite, in fact. Things were burning fiercer, hotter, and Blake wiped some sweat from her brow as she crawled herself forward._

 _She looked back for a moment, to confirm how the flames had spread across the ground. It'd only been a few minutes since she had started crawling away, but the two corpses in the clearing were already burning._

 _Sienna. Adam. Both of them had died there. Both had died there, so recently. Both were having their remains warped by the flames. By tomorrow, none of them would be recognisable. There'd be merely ash and bone._

 _If that. The Grimm were converging. Those monsters were searching for survivors, but their actions were dictated with an inexplicable hatred for humans and Faunus._

 _But at least there was comfort in knowing that they were monsters. Monsters didn't need to be explained. They were just monsters. Expecting them to hate and destroy came with the concept. They didn't have an intent, they simply were._

 _The Intoner? Four? She clearly had an intent. Blake didn't know what it was, but she clearly had motivations. There was meaning behind her actions. Blake didn't know what they were, but she was a person who would bring forth so much devastation for a reason._

 _This wasn't the actions of a monster who could barely think. This was an intelligent being which looked over the facts of the world, considered their desires, and chose to kill._

 _Blake noticed something moving ahead of her, and ducked down to the ground. A Beowulf was prowling along the ground, sniffing out sad intent. It paused, smelling into the air for a moment, before turning towards Blake._

 _Of course._

 _Reaching for Adam's sword, Blake pressed the trigger and fired the sword, quickly grabbing the hilt before it could fly out of reach and used it to slash through the air in the Beowulf's direction. The propulsion of the sword threw Blake through the air, and she slashed. She hit the ground in front of the Beowulf, cutting through it's head in the process, and her broken leg slammed into the ground. The bone fractured even further, and she screamed, as the Beowulf went limp._

 _There was a roar to her left, and Blake looked over to see, through the burning wreckage, more Grimm. All looking in her direction._

 _...Fuck._

 _The one at the front of the pack stepped forward, approaching Blake slowly. It walked over a burnt corpse, stepping over an unidentifiable head and crushing it with casual ease, as it walked around the flames. The others followed suit, approaching Blake at a leisurely pace, and she tried to pull her self away._

 _She abandoned that plan after a moment, after realising just how much faster than her the Grimm were. Instead, she put Adam's sword back in its sheath, waiting for the next Grimm to draw close enough for her to fire._

 _She rolled onto her back, and then shuffled backwards, leaning up so she could properly aim. In the few moments it took for that to be done, the Grimm were already upon her._

 _She pulled the trigger, and leaped for the sword in the process, but as she put pressure on her leg, the pain shot through her again, and she screamed. The sword flew ahead, and the Alpha Beowulf leaned its head to the side to avoid the blow. The Beowulf behind it was less lucky, as the blade stabbed through its roaring mouth, and it faded away after a moment. Adam's sword fell to the ground a moment later, and the next Grimm along walked over it, snapping the sword in the process._

 _Closing her eyes, Blake did her best not to sob._

 _She was..._

 _She couldn't give up now. There had to be someway for her to get out of this situation._

 _Pulling her hands into fists, Blake waited for the Grimm to approach, so she can get ready to fight. She couldn't let it end here. Not after what had happened._

 _Four had taunted Adam by telling him that nobody would remember he existed. Blake refused to let that be true. She couldn't let her win. She couldn't..._

 _The Alpha Beowulf took one more step forward, and then paused, giving Blake time to see her death coming._

 _Then the Beowulf behind it let out a death scream, and the Alpha turned back, in time for the blade to stab through it and hit the ground behind it._

 _As it dissolved, a teenage girl stepped forward, over the dissolving flesh as she approached Blake._

 _"Oh my." She said, as she picked up the sword and folded it away somewhere. "I didn't think you'd be in this bad a state. The part of me recording this hasn't intervened yet so I didn't know anything except I should look for you here, Blake."_

 _"Who..."_

 _"Ah, that's a secret." The young woman said. "I can't tell you just yet, I'm afraid. But I can't let you die yet, Blake. Even if you didn't have a role to play, you deserved better. You could have better. And I'm sorry it had to happen this way."_

 _Blake blinked, and suddenly, the heat was gone._

 _"W-What?" She asked, looking around._

 _The young woman smiled, as she put Adam's sword down in front of Blake. The damage done to the blade had been reversed, somehow. The red blade had been stitched together and reformed, close enough that she couldn't tell the difference._

 _"I'm sure you're confused." The young woman said. "But this is going to take a while to explain, even if I dance around what I'm not allowed to talk about. Give me a moment, Blake. Because Four, and the Intoners, are so much more dangerous than you think."_

Blake opened her eyes, as the memory kept going.

She still didn't know much about her saviour, definitely a lot less than she needed to know in order to properly trust her. But after what Four had done...

She couldn't afford to underestimate the enemy. And given that everything that Blake had attempted to confirm had been confirmed, she was willing to assume her nameless saviour was, at least, opposing the Intoners.

Which was what made this effort so important. The White Fang had reacted to her story with the appropriate amount of horror, and between her relation to Adam and the reputation gained when people found out what she had survived, the plan was simple enough for her to organise.

Step one was gathering all the Dust needed to make the plan work. Ice Dust, Water Dust, both were needed in high amounts to properly prepare to make this safe.

She just needed a bit more time. She had the location, she had the information, she had the plan. Maybe it'd fail, but she still had to make an attempt at this.

She couldn't just leave this unanswered. Four had kill hundreds of people in an hour, and she was the only one who properly knew. Even if shed had told the White Fang, they couldn't possibly understand the situation without being there at the time.

She had to do this. She couldn't afford to let someone like Four exist. And if her saviour had been even remotely truthful in regards, she wasn't alone.

There was a buzz from her scroll, and Blake looked over, to read the message she had been informed.

Ah. Ilia was back.

Leaving the room, Blake quickly exited the small caravan in which she'd been spending the last few months. Looking around, she saw several other caravans which she knew were filled with White Fang members, as Ilia walked past one. She looked towards Blake, and approached quickly.

"Hey." Ilia said, trying to avert her eyes from the burns lining Blake's face. The worst of them were covered by the mask that her mysterious sponsor had prepared, in replication of Adam's, but the mask only covered so much and her lower face and neck made it clear how much had burnt off. Not to mention her hair, which she had tried to keep cut, but the hair around the burns had never grown back, and it was noticeable after the over half of her hair kept growing.

"How'd the mission go?" Blake asked, immediately getting to the point.

Ilia looked away, briefly saddened. Blake almost apologised for her bluntness, but repressed the urge. There was no point. Even if Blake knew Ilia well, there was no point getting overly attached to anyone.

The Intoner, Four, was a monster. She delighted in taking people apart, even if she hid it behind a thing veneer or claiming justice. Blake refused to give herself another weakness for Four to exploit, when the time for battle came. She was already far too behind what she needed to be to face off against the Intoner.

Sighing, Ilia looked forward again. "...Complete failure."

That caught Blake off guard. She wouldn't have been too surprised at a partial failure, but complete? "What happened?"

"We were down a member from the start." Ilia explained. "Likely captured, because there was people there who had interfered with the plan. I'd prepared to go in to fight Red, but someone pulled me aside before I could. Haseltii went to figure out who sent her, but she never left. I tried contacting her scroll, and didn't recognise the voice that answered."

That... Wasn't good.

Blake looked up for a moment. Someone was making moves against them. Someone knew at least a bit. Blake didn't need to ask to know that the human hadn't returned either. Perhaps he had been a traitor all along, or perhaps he'd just been captured as well. Or perhaps he'd gotten scared and abandoned the cause. It didn't matter. Haseltii's capture did.

She was one of the people who knew the plan.

"Who was involved?" Blake asked.

"I don't know." Ilia responded. "There was the girl who bumped into me, a girl our age in a red dress. Maybe the girl who fought Red as well, some blonde brawler called Yang."

Blonde brawler?

"What weapon did she used?" Blake asked.

"Shotgun gauntlets." The answer came quickly. "Why?"

...Her again. Blake thought she would have made the yellow haired girl give up after breaking her arm. But she was still hunting her despite that?

Maybe hurting her so much was a mistake. But if she hadn't, Blake wouldn't have been able to make her stop. She had done the best she could, but now she had a new enemy. Someone looking for vengeance, possibly.

But on top of that, there was apparently an organised hunt, involving the person who Blake had personally hurt. And now they had Haseltii. After having at least good enough interrogation tactics to get the plan out of someone in the first place, assuming there wasn't a traitor.

And now they had Haseltii, and thus, information on the plan.

"...We can't play it safe anymore." Blake decided.

Ilia looked at her, as Blake looked down to look her in the eye. She vaguely recalled when Adam would do this, and how intimidating it had been to stare into the mask.

"If they have Haseltii, they'll know what we're doing soon enough." Blake stated. "We can't afford to wait, in that case. We need to get to Mount Chantico before anyone can intercept us there."

"...Or you could stop." Ilia tried. "Blake, I don't know everything about the plan, but I know enough to know it's dangerous. I know that, whatever happened that killed everyone up in Atlas, you want to get back at people. But are you really willing to risk this?"

"I have to." Blake responded, turning away from Ilia. "...You wouldn't understand. You didn't see it."

The Intoner, Four, had been monstrously powerful. Adam hadn't stood a chance, and he was more powerful than Blake could reach in a reasonable timeframe. And she knew from her saviour that she didn't have time.

Even if she just contributed, in a fight with people strong enough to bring down Four, Blake would merely be an inconvenience. Someone getting in the way. She wouldn't allow that. She needed to kill Four, but she needed to be strong enough to matter, first.

The plan was simple. Mount Chantico was close enough to Vale that she could get there quickly if she hurried. The heat of the volcano was enough that Grimm avoided it, and weaker ones would actually burn up getting close to it.

With all the Ice and Water Dust, Blake would buy herself time. All she needed to do was find one of the creatures that her savoir insisted lived within.

And then it was merely a question of if her mysterious helper was right, in telling her how to tempt one into forging a Pact.

 **It takes some time to travel to Mount Chantico, at least a days walk. If Blake delayed a day, she could get one last big shipment of Dust to take with her, to buy herself more time to accomplish her goals. But can she risk delaying for safety's sake?**

 **[X] Yes. Wait a day. Better safe than sorry.**  
 **[X] No. She couldn't afford to wait, when it came to this.**


	75. By The Sword

**[X] No. She couldn't afford to wait, when it came to this.**

The wagon creaked, as Blake rested in the back of it. The boxes full of Dust surrounded her, as she looked upwards into the covered roof, deep in thought.

Another reason to hate her burns. They made her recognisable. Getting in and out of the walls of the Kingdom wasn't as easy for Blake as it was for everyone else. She was too easy to identify, especially after being seen in the robberies she had pulled. It meant she had to be creative about getting in and out, and even with some fake identification, the resemblance was too strong for Blake to take the risk getting past a border guard.

Usually, there was a simple enough solution. A secret tunnel to sneak out of, an area near the border that wasn't monitored. But that did her no good, she needed to take the Dust with her as well. Without it, the entire plan fell apart.

Getting the Dust out at all was something that took a bit of difficulty. Fortunately, Blake had known enough to have the White Fang organise a cover story.

As far as anyone knew, the wagon was carrying supplies to a village outside of the Kingdoms. It was far enough away that by the time people realised the wagon wasn't arriving, the plan would be long since completed or failed, and whatever the conclusion, Blake would be long gone. Finding someone who sold horses was a bit of a difficulty, but it helped with the image of this being a long trip to a minor village if they avoided using automated transportation, so it was worth the price.

The real difficult part of the plan was getting past the border in the first place. Whatever was done, it had to be something that wouldn't draw attention, which meant that Blake couldn't just blow something up and charge through while nobody could stop her. Not could she just have Ilia sneak in and knock out whoever was monitoring this exit.

Or, well, not just that. Fortunately, the border of the Kingdom was far enough away from the cities that the main concern was with protecting the border from unwelcome Grimm, and non-Grimm criminals weren't as much of a concern. Especially not criminals leaving the Kingdom, where they couldn't do any harm. It'd be reported if they were found, yes, but it wasn't that hard to maintain a cover.

Which just meant that things had to look not suspicious. Fortunately, Blake knew how to handle this. Step one was up to Kettler Hackel, the enormous lieutenant of the White Fang. He was old and tough looking enough to look like he'd be able to handle Grimm for the most parts, and he wasn't immediately identifiable on a wanted poster like Blake was, which made him the perfect pick to put on a wanted poster.

And from there, all that Blake needed to do was make sure that the person on guard duty was sufficiently distracted that they didn't bother looking into the wagon. Which was why there was a bunch of White Fang members who had snuck out earlier luring Grimm near the border.

Blake heard the wagon draw to a stop, and she quickly looked around to confirm that the boxes around her would block her from anything short of an in-depth examination of the wagon.

"Cargo?" A grizzled old voice called out, from the front of the wagon.

"Standard supplies." Kettler replied. "Canned food. Water. Some steel. Some Dust. The usual."

"Hm." The grizzled voice noted, drawing closer to the wagon for a bit, before stopping.

"You know what, I don't care." He decided. "There's been a bunch of Grimm near the border, friend, and I can't waste my time going through your crates. Go ahead, you're free to go. But keep your wits about you, and your weapon moreso."

"Thanks." Kettler replied, before there was a crack of the reins to encourage the horses to send them onwards. Blake looked up to the roof, keeping quiet as the wagon went over a bump, causing her head to shift up and then slam down on the wood she was resting on. The road smoothed out a moment after that, and Blake kept resting, as the wagon was pulled onwards, further and further.

It took a few minutes, before Kettler spoke up.

"We're gone." He called back. "Border's out of sight. Nobody here but us."

Blake sighed in relief. "Good."

"You staying back there?" Kettler asked.

"Still a bit close for my tastes. If someone passes, don't want to have to hurry back out of sight. Need to play it safe."

"This wouldn't be as much of a problem if you hadn't left witnesses." Kettler noted, over the sound of the horses clopping along the stone.

Blake's hand tightened over Adam's sword, before she forced herself to relax.

"And prove Four right?" Blake asked. "I don't think so."

"There's no room for an ideological victory in war." Kettler replied. "Once everyone opposing you is dead, then you can care about ideals. If you want to prove yourself better then the enemy, do it when they can't kill you for it."

Blake went quiet, as she looked up to the roof of the wagon.

"Not in the mood?" Kettler asked, at her silence. "Alright, then. Just keep it in mind, Belladonna."

There was the sound of the reins cracking through the air, and the horses started trotting along faster.

"It's a long ride, Belladonna." Kettler advised. "And you're going to want to be well rested when we arrive. You should get some sleep."

"You might have a point." Blake decided, securing her scroll beside her head, by a strap holding a box to the wagon. "There's an alarm on my scroll, call it to set it off if there's an emergency."

There wasn't a reply from the Faunus at the front of the cart, as he kept guiding the horses along.

Closing her eyes, Blake vaguely wondered which nightmare she was going to have tonight.

* * *

She wasn't sure how long it was before the dreams of being burnt alive subsided, but Blake awoke eventually. It was still dark out when she did, but she could see the beginnings of a sunrise in the distance. So she'd had at least six hours of sleep, depending on how long it took her to doze off.

"Morning." She called, as she sat up.

"You're awake?" Kettler asked, before the horses came to a stop. "Good. Get out here, I've been awake for too long, we're swapping."

"Alright." Blake decided. She didn't really care enough to debate the point. "Which box had the food?"

"There's one open on the driver bench." Kettler replied, as he got off the wagon. He began walking around, and Blake shifted aside one of the boxes in her path so she could slide off, pulling her scroll, mask and Adam's sword with her.

Taking a quick moment to stretch, she noted Kettler pass by her, before throwing his chainsaw into the wagon.

"Wake me in a few hours." He decided, as he crawled in.

Blake rubbed a crick on her back, before attaching Adam's sword and sheath to her hip, and walking around the front of the wagon.

There were two horses, one black with white spots and one white with black spots. The sun was rising in the right, in a position where the burned side of her face would be exposed to sunlight first.

Still, she had a bit to go. Grabbing the reins on the horse, Blake briefly considered the fact that she had no idea how to steer horses.

Well, she would just have to guess. Crack the reins to make them go, pull them tight to make them stop, maybe pull it one way to make them turn?

Well, she'd figure it out.

Blake cracked the reins, and off she went.

Her scroll beeped as she tapped it with her off hand, quickly opening a map and checking her progress. It would be a while before they got to Mount Chantico. Once she was there, though, she'd have to be ready.

Her anonymous helper told only a little bit what to expect, of those that lived within Mount Chantico. The wyverns were useless for her goals, since they were basically big scaly, winged dogs. They wouldn't have the knowledge to forge a Pact. Even with what her saviour had told her, she didn't know enough about the process to forge the Pact with something that didn't know how to do it itself.

Which left two possibilities, one of which she knew would be harder, and either way, she'd need to negotiate on a quick time limit before getting out. If she didn't use all the Dust at once, she might be able to go in and then leave to consider, but that meant staying longer and giving the pursuers time to catch up.

"That's probably something you'd want to avoid." A voice said to her left, and Blake jumped as she turned towards the young woman who had saved her several months ago.

"What are you doing here?" Blake asked.

"Checking in on you." The girl replied. "Today's the day, huh?"

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to do that teleport thing to get us there faster?" Blake asked.

"Sorry." The woman sighed. "Rules. I technically broke them when I helped you out last time. And it's not technically teleportation, and there's a bunch of restrictions..."

She sighed. "It's annoying."

"So why are you here?" Blake asked. "If you can't help-"

"Bending the rules a little." The woman replied. "I'm not supposed to get attached to people, but you're not- And I can't tell you. Point is, I don't have enough friends, you're lonely, big sleeper back there's no good conversation, and I have an excuse. By the way-"

She reached over and tugged at the reins a bit, pulling the horses to the left. "It'll be faster like this."

Blake pushed her hands away. "I'm not lonely." She insisted.

"Yes you are." The young woman replied. "Granted, mostly because you're just scared of losing people again, but-"

"I'm not scared." Blake interrupted. "I'm not giving Four another weakness to exploit."

The woman sighed. "Therapy's not working. That's depressing. Sorry, Blake, I'm not exactly a therapist."

"Why are you here?" Blake demanded, feeling irritated. "If you don't have a good reason, tell me the excuse at least."

"Oh, that'd be the day job." The woman noted, reaching behind her. "How's the sword going for you?"

"It's worked fine." Blake answered.

The girl gave her a look.

"...It's no Gambol Shroud." Blake admitted. "I'm... Not a sword fighter."

"Exactly." The young woman noted. "So I think I might have a little solution to your current problem. You don't want to waste resources on remaking Gambol Shroud when you could just teach yourself sword play, but I think I can step in here."

Reaching out of Blake's sight, the young woman pulled out a list out of thin air.

"How much money do you have?" The girl asked. "I run a weapons shop, and can sell you some more things if you want."

"...I don't need more weapons." Blake shrugged off.

"Do you?" The woman asked. "I mean, you don't know how to use that sword anyway, not really. So why not just take a million and one different weapons and carry them everywhere?"

"I don't need more weapons." Blake repeated. "I need to learn the one I have."

"Are you sure about that?" The woman asked. "That weapon's holding you back, you know. It's too different from how you've fought previously. You're slow to transform it, you're swings are slower than if you were using Gambol Shroud, your movements are obvious, and I notice a lack of your old ribbon."

"I can get a new ribbon." Blake countered.

"Then why haven't you?" The girl asked. "It did a lot when you had it. Let you pull weapons back after throwing them. Could hook in and be a grappling hook. Use it to cut off oxygen supply. A lot of things."

Blake didn't reply to that.

...Why hadn't she gotten a new ribbon? It was something she was used to having in a fight, it'd make it a lot more convenient if she had it now, but at the moment, she hadn't. In fact, she hadn't touched Adam's sword at all since...

"You want to remember him, don't you?" The woman asked. "And that sword, that mask I made for you, that's all you have."

"...Yeah." Blake admitted. "I just... It's hard to know he's gone, you know? He was changing as time went on, got more violent, but he was still there at least. Now all that's left of him is me and the sword."

"And now you're risking one to maintain the other." The weaponsmith replied. "Well, I know you don't want to just let go of the sword, but be practical, at least? I mean, you should probably carry along one more weapon. Just for the surprise factor. In fact..."

The girl quickly ripped off some of the pieces of paper, and threw them to the wind.

"...Here! I got some magic weapons picked out, and if you want to grab one of these just so you can use them, go ahead and rip it off the page and throw it away, I'll wait for my payment at your destination. Just, uh, keep in mind, the transformations on them are meant to keep them small and hidden. If you tweak that, the magic might stop working."

She shoved the list of weapons in front of Blake, and the Faunus girl looked down at it for a moment.

"If these are magic weapons, why didn't you offer them earlier-" Blake began, only to look up and realise that the young woman was gone already.

With the sunlight starting to bother her, Blake looked down and briefly considered the apparent magic weapons.

If any of them were legitimate, then they could be useful in battle at some point. And Blake's mysterious sponsor did have some unusual abilities, so she was likely to assume that it was possible these weapons had some sort of power.

Thinking it over, Blake wondered if maybe her friend had a point.

There was nothing stopping her from remaking Gambol Shroud, and yet she'd persisted with Adam's sword. That was a mistake, now that someone had pointed it out. She was using a weapon she wasn't used to, refusing to modify it to make it easier for her to use, and wasn't adapting to it fast enough either.

She'd have to correct these, in future. Maybe use Wilt and Blush to help her build a new Gambol Shroud, fusing the two. Maybe just modify the red blade to make it easier for her to use, by shortening the blade and attaching a ribbon.

But that'd take time either way, and she couldn't exactly do it while she was riding to a volcano. And besides, she was vaguely curious about these magic weapons.

Well, she may as well take a chance.

Noting the prices on them saying she could only afford one, Blake tore off and threw away the piece of paper containing information on-

 **[X] Glory's Bane- A dagger which allowed the user to create and control swords out of light.**  
 **[X] Sorrow's Splinter- Those cut with this curved blade hear the screams of their failures.**  
 **[X] Slaughterism- A sword that produced electricity when exposed to blood. The more, the better.**


	76. Volcano

**[X] Sorrow's Splinter- Those cut with this curved blade hear the screams of their failures.**

The sun was setting, when Mount Chantico. The long journey had been bothersome, and the horses were getting tired, but at least Blake and Kettler hadn't encountered too many Grimm on the path. Sure, she had to shoot down a few at a distance here and there, but for the most part, the Grimm had been dealt with in advance.

After all, since there were some White Fang members already going ahead to lure Grimm to the border of Vale, it was easy enough for them to also run ahead of the wagon and kill any notable Grimm on the way there. Not too many, to avoid the information from getting out of hand. Mostly just people picked by Kettler while Blake had prepared the wagon, to make sure they were people who could be trusted with the information.

Blake hadn't really paid much attention to that part of the plan. She didn't need to. The specific members of the White Fang were irrelevant, as long as the plan _worked_.

"Almost there." Kettler noted, as he held the reins on the horses. Blake sat behind him, on a box in the wagon, looking ahead. "Can you feel the heat picking up?"

Now that he mentioned it, it was a lot hotter, now that they were approaching the mountain.

"We'll need to leave the horses, soon." Kettler noted. "Hopefully, the men sent ahead were smart enough to set up camp before too long, and you can leave them there before getting to work with your little plan."

"Here's hoping." Blake muttered, under her breath.

"It might be an idea to start using up the Dust now." Kettler advised. "Unless you're going to want to stick around camp, for a bit."

"There'll be something I want to check first." Blake responded.

If the mysterious sponsor was serious about waiting for payment, and if the White Fang had set up a camp near the volcano, then that would be the most likely place to look around for it.

"If you insist." Kettler replied. "Make it quick, though. We don't know if we're in the clear or not, and I'd rather not try my luck."

"I'll be fast." Blake confirmed. "I can't afford to delay. Not at this stage."

Kettler nodded, before wiping his brow of sweat. "As long as you know the stakes, Belladonna."

"I know them better than you." Blake replied frostily. "The worst you've seen is what humans can do, working conditions in Schnee owned mines and factories run by greed. You haven't seen Four. You haven't seen someone who's intent was outright genocide."

Kettler snorted. "The only difference between Four and the Schnee is that Four doesn't care about a profit. If the Schnee couldn't make any money off of us, they'd be killing us just as gleefully."

"There's a difference between intent and action." Blake noted. "It doesn't matter what the Schnee _would_ do. Jacques Schnee hasn't outright walked through the pile of his victims, justifying the slaughter of children while laughing."

"Believe it matters, if you wish." Kettler finished. "The line's not as defined as you think."

Looking ahead and quickly manipulating her Aura to cool herself down, Blake noted something aide of the road up ahead.

"I think I see the camp." She noted. "I'm going to run ahead. Save some time by finishing by business up ahead while you finish with the horses."

"Whatever you say, Belladonna." Kettler replied. "Go ahead."

Blake pushed herself off the wagon, grabbing Adam's sword in the process, and then started sprinting ahead to the camp.

All around, the vegetation had disappeared. Looking back, it was possible to see a few trees and some grass. But where she was running and where she was, plant life seemed to have died off.

The area around the volcano seemed barren, like it belonged to a dead world.

Of course, she could be wrong. Faunus could see better in the dark, but the fact of the matter was that it was easier to see in the day than near the night, and the sun was well and truly down by now. Still, the area looked dark. The fires and heat had burnt down the soil and and dirt nearby

The only sign of real colour was in the far distance, where small fires were burning on the ground up Mount Chantico.

Finally rushing ahead into the area she had seen, Blake stepped into the camp the White Fang had set up.

Or, well, 'Camp.' There was a tent near the road, then two more tents way in the back in an area not visible from the road, near a bonfire.

Walking over towards the camp fire, Blake noticed that there only appeared to be three masked people around the campfire, cooking marshmallows. Two of them, she didn't recognise, but the third-

"Ilia." Blake noted, looking down at the girl huddled by the camp fire. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm in on your mission now." She replied. "Apparently, I'm one of the most trustworthy people around. Plus I was seen at the fight club, so I needed to get away from an organised search anyway."

"You shouldn't be here." Blake repeated.

The two other White Fang members around the fire looked at each other, then picked up the packet of marshmallows and retreated into one of the nearby tents, leaving Blake and Ilia alone.

"Why shouldn't I be here?" Ilia asked. "Is there a reason why I shouldn't be?"

"There's no point in you being here." Blake noted.

"I've already explained why I'm here." Ilia pointed out. "And all I know about the plan is that you're going into the volcano for something. I'm not going in as well. So why don't you want me around?"

...She didn't want to get attached to anyone again. She didn't want to see a familiar face over and over, and get used to seeing it. She didn't want to suffer the pain of loss again.

"..Never mind, then." Blake decided, turning away.

"Stop that." Ilia replied, standing up. "You made an issue of it, then gave up as soon as I asked for an explanation. Talk to m-"

Blake turned her head back, glaring at Ilia over her shoulder, her mask falling off as she turned to reveal her burned face. Ilia recoiled from the sight.

"Mind your own business." Blake hissed, before catching her mask and putting it back on.

Ilia didn't talk again, as Blake walked back towards the road.

Stopping for a moment by the first tent, Blake poked her head inside, and saw a box in the middle of it. On top of the box was a small bit of writing, obviously from Blake's saleswoman.

There was a scanner on the side, and Blake quickly put her scroll over it. The scroll beeped, and the box opened, revealing a small sickle-like blade within. Pulling out the weapon which she could identify as Sorrow's Splinter, Blake took a moment to measure the weight. She held it still, waved it up and down, and took a few test swings.

Hm. Well balanced. It'd be easy enough to learn how to use it in a proper fight. The design was odd, in that the outward edge of the sickle had spikes on it, and Blake wasn't entirely sure if they had a practical use or if they were just cosmetic. But more importantly, Blake wanted to make sure the magic worked.

Baring her left palm, Blake brought the blade down and stabbed _down through Adam's face, shattering his mask while she screamed. The rage and hate in Four's voice as she ran him through echoed through her soul, and Adam stopped twitching as the heat and smoke rose around her and choked her and **he died for her** and **she watched** and-_

Taking a sudden breath as she recoiled, Blake looked down at her palm, staring for a moment.

...Well, it worked.

Looking down at Sorrow's Splinter, Blake considered just putting it back in the box and getting it when she returned. All of a sudden, she wasn't too fond of keeping hold of it.

Looking down, she noticed that the box was gone.

...Well, that's annoying.

Attaching Sorrow's Splinter to her belt, Blake took a moment to consider what to do with it in the future. Maybe she should invest in getting a cloak so she could hide it until she pulled it out.

Still, that was something for later. For now, it didn't matter.

Exiting the tent, Blake saw Kettler steer the wagon up ahead further. The horses were panting, the heat and exhaustion getting to them, and eventually, the tall man allowed them to stop.

"Here's where we stop, Belladonna." He noted. "Have you tied up all your loose ends?"

"I'm ready." Blake replied.

"Sure?" He clarified. "Remember, if you make a mistake here, the volcano over there is too hot for you to walk away. You've been burnt once, but you survived that."

"I don't care." Blake replied. "I need to do this."

Kettler thought on that for a moment, as he got off the seat on the wagon.

"You have resolve, at least." He noted. "Don't let it go to waste, Belladonna."

Walking around to the back of the wagon, Blake started pulling all the boxes out. Kettler called out towards the camp, and the rest of the White Fang started repeating the process.

Once the boxes were unloaded, Ilia led the horses away to some water, and the other four Faunus started carrying the boxes towards the volcano.

* * *

"That's all of them." Kettler noted, as he pried open the last box.

Standing by an open cave that led down into a pit of lava, Blake looked down, preparing herself.

"You've only got so much time, you know." One of the White Fang members that Blake didn't know pointed out. "If you're in there too long, the Dust's effect will fade-"

"I know." Blake said. "I've been preparing for this for a long time."

The White Fang member sighed. "...Alright then. Stay safe."

Blake stood behind the three other Faunus, as they stood behind the boxes full of Ice and Water Dust. There was one exception, a box full of Ice Dust, which Blake was running her hands through. Quickly, faster and faster, the Dust started melding with her Aura, cooling her soul.

"Go." Blake ordered.

The boxes were tipped over, and the Dust thrown down the cave. The Dust hit the lava, which rapidly began cooling. Steam bellowed out of it, blinding everything from view for a moment, before the last of the Dust started flowing down the cave.

"Be quick, Belladonna." Kettler shouted.

Blake didn't respond, and starting bolting down the cave.

It only took a few seconds, before the heat hit her like a truck. With a crate full of Ice Dust in her, Blake was saved from her shoes melting at the heat, but even despite the precautions taken, the Aura manipulation trick to cool herself down, the heat was immense.

But of course. She was running on lava that had been frozen by Dust, so she only had so much to work off.

After a moment of running, the cavern opened up, and the heat intensified, enough that Blake actually felt her Aura dropping just by being near it. Looking around, Blake leaped up, and stabbed Adam's sword into the wall to hold her in place.

Looking around, she noted that the inside of the volcanic system was ridiculously large, and not even that far away, Blake could see some boiling magma.

And then something emerged from it.

Perfect.

Pulling Adam's sword out of the wall, Blake let herself fall, using her shadow replicas to get to the ground before she could build up too much momentum.

Hitting the cooled rock above the lava, Blake rolled to bleed off any momentum she'd built up, and started walking ahead. She continued on, until she reached about a metre from the flowing magma, at which point she stopped.

Clearing her throat, Blake held her head high, removed her mask, and spoke loudly.

"I seek a Pact." She called.

There was silence for a moment, before the molten rock before her burst outwards in front of her. And then to the right of that, and then to the left. A total of sixteen bursts shot upwards, and sixteen snake-like beings made of flame stood over the magma when it was done.

The outer fourteen began circling around, dancing in patterns, while the two immediately in front of Blake slowly shifted, and took upon a human-ish form.

Two red bodies, devoid of features but with their arms flaking off skin revealing pink and white appearances underneath. Flame flowed like hair from the top of their heads, which were unmoving stone masks.

Salamanders.

"A Pact?" Asked the Salamander on the right.

"The cat seeks a Pact." Repeated the one on the left.

Blake ignored the insult, as she looked up at them. "I've come to find the strongest of you." She stated.

"She's been burned once." The Salamander on the right mused, causing Blake to wince before she could stop herself.

"She looks beautiful in burns." The one on the left concurred. "Perhaps we should burn her more?"

"Those are old burns, though." The one on the right noticed. "And look, she reacts when we mention the burns."

"Trauma?" Left asked.

"A dragon, actually." Blake replied.

There was silence, as all the Salamanders hovering through the air held still.

"A dragon?" Asked the right Salamander.

"She seeks us to fight a dragon." Left noted. "Foolish, or perhaps suicidal."

"Her Soul has been quartered already." Right mused. "Merely from the heat."

"Dragons don't care for the Soul." Left pointed out.

"Give her the flickering spark?" Right Salamander considered.

"Listen to me." Blake demanded.

Suddenly, a Salamander was in her face, and she recoiled from the flame.

"You are filled with fear, human." The Salamander hissed. "Fearful children need to learn."

Clenching a fist around Adam's sword, Blake stepped forward, and stabbed.

Before the blade could hit the Salamander's face, it was back in it's original position, and Blake couldn't tell if it was the one on the right or the left which moved.

"Brave." They mused, in unison.

"Stupid-"

"-Possibly inbred-"

"-But brave." They finished in unison.

Blake decided that she was done dealing with these two.

"I'm here to negotiate." She demanded. "Stop wasting my time. You're as fast as the flickering flame, but you're not immortal."

Sixteen flaring flames flashed around the Faunus, and sixteen Salamander's stared in their humanoid form.

"You think you could kill us?" One Salamander asked, from somewhere in the circle.

"Foolish human." Another Salamander noted.

"Sixteen of us. One of her."

"Already third dead."

"We can talk and let the heat kill her."

"Or kill her now."

"Or let her live."

"Cover her in burns?"

"Shut up." Blake said, hissing at a pitch that distracted everyone from the other Salamanders.

"Are you done?" She asked, remembering the advice given to her by her sponsor. "Because you're giving up a chance to negotiate here."

"Oh?" Sixteen voices asked in unison.

"I've heard the legends." Blake lied. Rather, she was told something to start with. "Once upon a time, you had power. You'd wander from volcano to volcano, finding one about to erupt, hold back the eruption, and then hold any nearby villagers at ransom. And then the Grimm came, and you were trapped. No more ransom. No more wandering."

"Don't assume to know us, human." One of the Salamander's hissed.

"You know a lot less if you think that's what I am." Blake responded. "The point remains, however. If I cut you, you will bleed. You'll kill me for sure, but how many of you will get hurt in the process? And why do that, when one of you could step forth with a Pact? No bloodshed needed. We negotiate. I want one of you to help me kill someone. One of you must want something. There's no need to make this harder."

There was silence, from the sixteen Salamander's. Blake vaguely noticed, ahead of her, how the cooled rock was receding, and took a few steps back.

Then, from deep under the magma, something roared.

The volcanic rock shot up from all around, shaking the entire mountain, yet somehow not effecting Blake or her platform. The Salamander's all retreated under the magma, except for the two who had spoken from the start.

"How lucky of you, human." The one on the right noted. "You've drawn its attention."

Blake frowned. "It? What do you-"

"You'll see." The one on the right replied. "But first, answer me. Why do you want to kill?"

Blake looked over at the Salamander, wondering what answer it would want most.

They clearly didn't care about Four being a monster, so it was plan b, then. It wasn't even a lie, not really.

"She killed people I care about." Blake admitted.

The two Salamanders made an amused sound.

"Then how strong is your resolve?" Left asked.

"Are you willing to risk your life?" Right mused.

"Destroy something you care about?"

"Sacrifice something you value?"

The two looked at Blake, who nodded.

"Very well, then." Right declared, before seeping under the waves. Left turned into the flame snake form Blake had seen earlier, and flowed around her.

"Then let us test that." Left decided, taking a humanoid form. "I am here. If you are fast enough, you can wound me. If I am dying, forging a Pact is possible. Or-"

Another roar shot through the cave.

"-You can prove your resolve." The Salamander concluded. "You seem rather possessive of that red sword of yours."

Blake held it closer, and the Salamander smiled.

"The beast that lies below is the strongest being here." The Salamander continued. "It is no dragon, but it is powerful. And vengeance is a game it knows well. If you wish to tempt it into a Pact, then prove yourself to it. Sacrifice the blade, and you may go and meet it."

What?"

Blake looked down at Adam's sword, in momentary shock.

...She had another weapon, but...

This was _Adam's_ sword. The last thing she had of him. The mask was a mere replica, but this was actually his. By throwing it aside, she was making a decision. She was throwing away the last physical sign that he existed to avenge his memory.

 _"By this time tomorrow I won't even remember you fucking existed!"_

Blake remembered Four's fury at that line, as she dismissed Adam's existence. The mask was one thing, but the sword was easily identifiable. She'd be able to make a point of it, then. Prove Four wrong. Make her remember Adam existed as Blake killed her.

...All that was left of him was Blake and the sword. That's all there was. And once Blake sacrificed the sword, there'd only be here. And people would never remember her as being something Adam left behind, not like the sword.

She needed to take her revenge on Four. But the Salamander was right there. Even if it tried being tricky with her, if she cut it with Sorrow's Splinter first, it might be too stunned to defend itself until it was maimed enough for Blake to force it to forge a Pact. Then she'd keep Adam's sword.

Or she could just let it go.

 **[X] Sacrifice the Blade.**  
 **[X] Attack the Salamander.**


	77. No Smoke Without A Fire

**[X] Sacrifice the Blade.**

Adam's sword had a lot of history behind it. Good memories. Bad memories. This is the sword Adam used when teaching Blake to fight. The same sword he had used the first time the White Fang had turned to violence, back when it was easier to say they were the good guys. The sword he had held when the White Fang started making a difference, when the threat of violence forced the various companies to improve conditions.

The sword he had held, when he had walked away from the Atlas ball covered in blood. The sword that, as Blake had found out later, had killed the matriarch of the Schnee family. The sword which had eventually been taken by Four and turned against him, leaving his broken body to burn.

There was still so many questions which Blake had never gotten to ask him, never gotten an answer to. It was hard, at times, to remember what had happened before Four entered the scene. But Adam had killed a woman, and Blake had never gotten to ask why.

She'd never gotten to confront him, and ask him about it. The White Fang had gotten more extreme over time, and Blake had never gotten to tell Adam her concerns. She'd never gotten to ask why he killed the Schnee woman. Questions she had wanted the answer to, but had left it until too late.

She was never going to get the answers she wanted. She could make guesses and assumptions, but she'd never be able to be sure. Because he was dead. His motives, his intent, his reasons, all of those had been lost. The sword was all that was left.

...But the sword wasn't him. There was no need to keep the sword, when the path to power would be harder with it. Adam's sword was nothing, really. Avenging his name and bringing justice was.

She had to kill Four.

She needed to be stronger to even be able to stand a chance of surviving Four's presence.

She couldn't just wait, and let Four get away with it. She couldn't let Four continue hunting down the White Fang. Even in the few months she had waited, Four had been busy.

The White Fang in Atlas were almost entirely wiped out, in the short amount of time, and although Mistral only had a few members as it was, she had heard the reports from Vacuo. There were White Fang members there who just vanished, never to be seen again, and before long, hideouts would be burnt to the ground or everyone inside them would be found dead.

If Four just kept acting as she was, it wouldn't be long before the White Fang as a movement were gone. And then where from there? Four was a worse extremist than even the most extreme members of the White Fang. She wouldn't stop, once the White Fang were gone. Faunus not aligned with the White Fang would be met with similar fates if Four was given leeway.

She couldn't accept that. Blake had to stop her.

Blake _had_ to do it. She was the only person who could do it. She was the one who had seen Four in action, she was the one who had survived the massacre, she was the one who had seen people die to Four.

Adam's sword was something she'd been treasuring, but she couldn't afford to treasure anything. Not now. She was already too far behind Four.

That was why she'd refused to make any attachments to anyone. That was why she had shunned Ilia, even though she was an old friend. She couldn't afford to give herself a distraction, something that would hurt to lose, someone she couldn't leave behind.

All that mattered was justice, revenge against Four. She couldn't let something distract her from that. She had to kill Four, no matter the cost. Who cared if she reminded Four of Adam in her dying moments?

Adam was dead. Blake was avenging him, but it was _her_ vengeance she was taking.

Pulling the sheath from her waist, Blake held both blade and sheath in front of her, and put one in the other.

...After all this time, it was still so rare for her to think of it as Wilt and Blush. It was always 'The Sword' or 'Adam's Blade.' There was an attachment right there. Maybe she needed this, to be able to properly focus on her goal.

Letting go of the hilt and holding the blade by the sheath, Blake looked over into the volcanic rock, and threw the sword.

Before it even touched the molten magma, the heat of the area took its toll on the blade. Without Blake's Aura to protect it, it had melted like an ice block in the summer sun before it had even struck the ground. The glowing orange metal was unrecognisable by the time it hit the magma, and after a moment of watching it, Blake didn't know if it had sunk or not.

It was gone.

"There." Blake said frostily. "It's gone. It's gone."

"You sacrificed the blade." The salamander noted, its voice emotionless and bland. "Your resolve is strong enough to destroy metal. Congratulations."

"I did as you asked." Blake hissed. "Don't lessen it now."

"I am not." The Salamander corrected. "I am stating exactly what you did. You had a weapon. Now you do not. Your resolve has been tested, somewhat. It will now make its demand, if you meet it."

"And where _is_ it?" Blake asked.

The Salamander looked into the magma. "If you have the resolve to face it, step forward."

Blake followed its gaze, into the boiling magma at her feet. The Dust-induced cooled rock had receded somewhat again, but there was no denying what the Salamander was saying.

"What the fuck is this?" Blake demanded. "I sacrificed my sword. Get your beast out here."

"You said you seek revenge." The Salamander noted. "How important is this to you? Are you willing to risk your life for it? Would you be willing to die for it?"

"I'm not going to die pointlessly!" Blake snapped, drawing Sorrow's Splinter. "I-"

"It controls the heat." The Salamander noted. "The Grimm die near this place because it has enforced the strength of the flame. If it is impressed by your resolve, it will spare you. If it finds you lacking, you will die."

"I'm here to get power." Blake said hotly. "Not to die. How am I supposed to kill Four if I'm dead?"

"How will you get your revenge if you lack power?" The Salamander questioned.

Blake curled her fist into a ball, and for a moment, she considered leaving.

But...

It had taken months, to prepare this operation. People had been captured, interrogated, likely tortured and broken, to try and figure out the plan. People had risked so much, helping Blake after she had made an enemy of Four. Her anonymity had been lost.

If she failed here, then it would have been for nothing. She would have put her face all over the news and let people know of her role in the White Fang for nothing. She would have sacrificed Adam's sword for nothing.

And if she walked away, she'd have to find something else to forge a Pact with. Something that might not offer her the slightest chance, or force her to do something as bad, or worse, in order to convince it to Pact with her.

She had come this far. She couldn't stop now.

Turning back towards the magma, Blake took a deep breath, focused her Aura, and took a step forward.

And then she was drowning in the heat.

She fell through the boiling rock slowly, but couldn't pay attention to the lack of oxygen or the pressure of the molten magma, compared to the heat. She couldn't even feel how fast her Aura was fading, compared to-

Beneath her, something moved. A bright light became visible through the magma, a shining ball even through the liquid flame.

But it was too far, too far, she wouldn't reach it while her Aura was intact, she couldn't...

Closing her eyes to focus, Blake abandoned focusing her Aura, in favour of propelling herself downwards. Her Semblance let her throw herself down while leaving shadowy copies behind her. The heat was immense, and had Blake not been under the liquid boiling rock, she would have screamed in the pain.

She had to get to the light. Her saviour had told her enough about Pacts to recognise it, whatever the beat was, that was its Soul bared to her. Blake swam down, barely moving at all as she desperately pushed herself down, reaching an arm out for the light as she felt her Aura burn away, fade away, and-

Her hand reached down, reaching for the light. But at the last second, her Aura failed, and her hand burnt away.

Not, not just her hand. Everything was burning away she was burning away burning away burn-

Something slammed into her chest, and suddenly, there was blackness.

" _Per_ fect..." Hissed a sinister voice, that seemed to resonate from within Blake's... Head? "Yes, this is quite nice..."

Blake took a moment to try and breath. W-What had just happened? For a moment, she thought she had-

"Died?" Asked the hissing voice. "Oh, that is still a possibility. This current state is not a Pact. You have yet to seal your end. My abilities shall keep you alive for now. If you wish to survive, however, it would seem that _my_ terms are the ones to be acknowledged."

...It had wanted her to die, Blake realised. It had wanted her to the brink of death, where she had no choice but to accept its terms. The Pact would restore the condition of one near death, so if she accepted its terms, she would live, but if not, then she died.

"Exactly." The beast hissed again. "Now, shall you hear my term-"

The terms didn't matter. None of it mattered. As long as the beast would help her kill Four, she'd agree to anything.

The creature fell silent.

And then, crashing through her head like a roaring inferno, it laughed.

"You're _serious_!" It roared again, like the burning flame. "You can say it, but I can sense your thoughts, and I can sense your intention. Your desire for a revenge burns true. But its easy to say this when your resolve has not been tested. Your attachments and your life, you have been ready to throw away. But what of your morality?"

Explain, Blake demanded.

"You seek to slay this person in vengeance, Four?" The creature asked. "That's a beginning. But for her to be dead is not enough. I will help you, but you cannot stop at killing her."

"I want you to _ruin_ her."

Blake kept waiting for an explanation, and the creature gave it.

"Every living being effects every living being alongside it, a sign that it was alive. Undo this for your vengeance. Do not stop at the person you seek vengeance against. An eye for an eye are the words of cowards. Tear apart her life. Kill her loved ones. Destroy her legacy. Undo everything she ever worked towards. If you want my power, earn it. Show me that you will _end_ her."

Images flashed through Blake's mind. The airship burning and crashing, the corpses of children she walked past after the crash, the casual ease of which Four killed Sienna, the broken and maimed corpse of Adam, the words of her saviour as she explained the Intoners to her.

Four wasn't going to care who she targeted. She was going to destroy everyone around her targets, and justify it after the fact. The dead children who had the misfortune of having parents in the White Fang were proof enough that Four didn't care about how indiscriminate she was.

So why should Blake be any different? Why should Blake hesitate?

"Excellent." The flame monster hissed again, as smoke started to seep into Blake's vision. "Then let it be done. Bare your soul to me, and the Pact shall be sealed."

Blake reached into herself, into her chest, and as the flames hissed guidance into her ear, her soul was poured into her palm. Extending her hand, a light appeared in the smoke before her.

"Now, place your soul in mine."

Blake did so, and instantly, she was bathed in light. Her body fizzed, and she could feel a short burst of pain from her limbs and skin, as well as longer lingering pain across her right side, where the burns she had gotten from the dragon were.

Opening her eyes, Blake found herself hovering above the magma.

"And thus the Pact is sealed." She heard, and she looked around, to see smoke condensing above the lava as well. A tendril of smoke around her leg faded, letting her go, and Blake almost flailed, until her foot touched the magma and stood on it like the ground.

"The heat and flame are mine." The smoke creature continued, as it turned to flame. Hovering in the air, something resembling a human torso with arms and a head was formed. "For I am the avatar of Flame, Ifrit. And you?"

"Blake Belladonna." The cat Faunus introduced herself. She looked herself over, noting how not in pain she was now, and quickly trying to identify what her Pact Price had been.

Her soul had been crippled in some way, to connect her to the Pact Beast, this Ifrit. And whatever she had lost would be marked, somewhere, she had heard. So what-

She looked down, she noticed smoke emerging from the back of her shoulder, Pulling away her shirt a bit to look down it, Blake starred down at a burn from there, and saw that her burns were producing the smoke themselves.

"What an interesting consequence..." The Ifrit mused.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked. "Do you know what this is?"

"Perhaps I'll tell you." The Ifrit's snakelike voice hissed. "If you can earn it. Take the head of one close to this Four woman, and we shall see if it is still a mystery to you then."

"So you're done?" A voice asked. Blake turned, and came face to face with her mysterious sponsor again.

"I've forged the Pact." Blake noted. "And you've helped me so far. Where do I go from here?"

The young woman shrugged. "I can't tell you too much. Still a little bit to go before the me that's recording gets to step in, so I can't tell you much. However, I can tell you, there are people preparing to fight the Intoners. They may value an ally."

Behind Blake, the Ifrit turned to smoke, and circled around her, before all the smoke started sucking into her burns, eventually disappearing. A thin trail rose from here and there, but for the most part, the Ifrit was gone.

The young woman hummed thoughtfully at the smoke coming out of Blake, and seemed to want to say something, but stopped herself at the last moment.

"There's a group in Mistral." The girl noted. "But I don't think they'll be right for you, just yet. Too many personalities you'd clash with, especially the one guy keeping them in hiding. Not that the others'll be much better, but she'd probably do it if I offered her a sword..."

"Just tell me." Blake insisted. "Stop wasting my time."

"So mean." The young woman complained. "But I can see you're in a rush, so I won't keep you. I can't say much, but... Go to Vacuo. The north shores. There's a city, as far north to the Kingdom as you can go, where you can hire somebody to take you to a weapon stall near the beach. She'll meet you there."

Picking up a small rock out of the magma, the young woman blew on it, and the area was filled with smoke. It vanished almost instantly, but by then, she was gone.

 **Hm. Can't help but feel like this resolved quicker than usual.**

 **Ah well. On we go. Soon enough, important things will be happening. But first, back to Yang. Her Uncle should be returning soon enough, after all.**

 **[X] Qrow teaches Yang some more about weird dream spirit journey stuff.**  
 **[X] Qrow wants to see how far Ruby has advanced, Yang offers to be a sparring partner.**


End file.
